Faery Heroes
by Silently Watches
Summary: Response to Paladeus's challenge "Champions of Lilith". Harry, Hermione, and Luna get a chance to travel back in time and prevent the hell that England became under Voldemort's rule, and maybe line their pockets while they're at it. Lunar Harmony; plenty of innuendo, dark humor; manipulative!Dumbles; jerk!Snape; bad!Molly, Ron, Ginny
1. Fae-Crossed Lovers

**I welcome one and all to the first chapter of my response fic! Since only a few people have told me which of my story ideas they would prefer to see, I'm going to be posting both of them for a couple of weeks and judge which, if either, is being enjoyed more. This will (hopefully) be funny and happy, so please enjoy.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry choose one girl at the end, and one of the worst available at that? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 1  
****Fae-crossed Lovers**

"No means no."

"Come on, Harry. _Pleeease? _" begged a blonde woman, her silver eyes glistening with tears as she gazed into Harry's emerald ones. "We haven't had pancakes in _so loooong_."

Harry stared at his lover in astonishment. "We had them yesterday!"

"But that was for breakfast, and it's dinner now. You never make us pancakes for dinner." Her point made, Luna pouted at him, cutely of course. She couldn't afford to lessen her chances to make him cave.

Harry, however, was unmoved. "I have enough trouble with you wanting them every day for breakfast, you're not having them for dinner. If you want pancakes that much, you or Hermione can make them."

Her glare was enough of an answer, but she followed it up in case he was being spectacularly stupid. "Harry, sweetie, Hermione may be an expert in potions brewing, but not even starving babies would eat her cooking. Don't you remember what her last attempt was like?"

"Nope." He grinned at her surprise and tapped his temple, "I dislike Lockhart for many reasons, but I do agree with him about _Obliviate_; it's a handy spell to have."

"What's a handy spell?" his other lover asked as she entered the den. "And what's for dinner?"

"Harry's making us pancakes!" Luna cheered. He could resist Hermione, he could even occasionally resist her, but he would never be able to resist them both.

"What! No I'm not!"

"Really, Harry, pancakes? You have to learn to say no to her eventually. But since you have decided to make them, I won't stop you this time."

He sighed, hung his head, and began shuffling to the kitchen, missing his girls' twin expressions of glee.

"And use some of those blueberries! There aren't many places we can get them, after all."

Whoever said having multiple girlfriends at the same time was a good thing had obviously never experienced it.

* * *

_Even though they're pains in my arse, I wouldn't give them up for anything_, Harry thought as he mixed berries into the batter for the trio's dinner. His time with them had been the happiest of his life, and it would be perfect if not for the conditions outside their manor. War has a way of putting a damper on one's enthusiasm.

Voldemort had not been as completely dead as everyone had hoped. The day before the battle, he had apparently been so terrified by the loss of his Horcruces that he created another one, this one a simple stone that he left at the bottom of the Black Lake. Thanks to Lucius Malfoy's assistance, he had returned to physical form in just four years and immediately proceeded to take over the Ministry of Magic, again, and declare war on _'the enemies of all wizards'_, the Muggles. His first strike was an assassination attempt against the Queen and Prime Minister, which failed pitifully.

No one in the Ministry knew anything about how Muggles waged war. In retrospect, that should have been obvious; after all, their 'expert' was unable to recognize children's bath toys or even pronounce Muggle words correctly. When grenades and bullets rained down on Diagon Alley, there had been no warning and no quarter. Two years later, the magical population of Britain had fallen from its previous 14,000 to only 4,500, and those survivors all nearly worshiped Voldemort as the one man to realize the threat Muggles presented. Strange how quickly they forgot who it had been that first stirred up that hornet's nest.

The trio of lovers had been more than willing to remain out of this new war and integrate into whatever society was left, and they would have been safe all this time if not for that red-haired, arse-kissing, _back-stabbing coward_…

Harry took a deep breath as he relaxed his grip on the mixing bowl. The bloody Weasleys were a swift death to the iron control he had to maintain on his anger. After the Horcrux in his scar was destroyed, it became clear that the all-consuming rage he had felt during his fifth year and what should have been his seventh were less the influence of his and Voldemort's mental connection and more his natural temper. According to the portraits of his grandparents he had found while he was restoring Potter Manor following the end of the Second Voldemort War, he may look like his father, but no one could deny he was his mother's son.

The batter was ready and the griddle finally hot, so Harry was about to pour the damn pancakes when he heard Hermione scream. He was out of the kitchen before the bowl had enough time to hit the floor.

* * *

The entrance hall looked like a bomb had gone off inside, and for a moment, he feared the worst. A second glance showed him that the room was not damaged in any way, simply covered in soot and ash. He found Hermione and Luna standing against the front door with their wands pointed at the fireplace, so he too aimed in that direction and at the oddest looking man Harry had ever seen, and he had met Luna's father.

The intruder was short, four-and-a-half feet would be a generous estimate. He wore red fur pants and jacket, both of which were strangely clean despite the filth covering everything else in sight. His clothing's white trim matched his hair and beard, which fell almost to his knees. Black boots covered his feet, and Harry knew that he would not be inconspicuous even in the occasionally colorblind Wizarding World.

Only after he reached behind him and picked up a bulging sack did they realize exactly who this man was meant to resemble. With a battle cry of "Gimme!", Luna was the first to react, pouncing upon him and wrapping her limbs around his bag with as much force as her svelte body could produce. She bit his hand until he released it, and then scurried over to Harry with her prize.

Her lovers were used to her occasional childishness, and were about to apologize to the man when he let loose several belly-shaking laughs. "You never change, do you, my dear?"

"You two know each other?" Hermione asked, alternating between watching the stranger and glaring at Luna.

The blonde looked up from her spoils at them. "Of course we do. This is Santa." Her contribution over, she crawled halfway into the sack, flinging numerous presents out of it as she progressed.

"And _this_ is the little girl who attempted to take over the North Pole, and very nearly succeeded, too." Santa growled. "Thankfully, that only happened once."

Hermione sighed. "Luna, what did you do?" Harry knew that tone; it meant that she really could not care less what the younger woman did as long as she was not swept up in the shenanigans. Luna impressively contorted her body so that her head was poking out of her new toy and looked at them from between her feet.

"I hid in the sleigh until he returned to his workshop, then bribed the elves with caffeine and snowball fights," she chirped. "But Santa was mean to me after that, so I didn't want to play with him."

Four eyes rolled to the saint, who just shrugged. "I gave her rotten eggs in her stocking. She should know better than to irritate a faery."

Feeling that it was best to move on before his lovers got in yet _another_ row, Harry asked the question that had been in his mind since he first arrived in the room. "Er, not to be rude, but why exactly are you in our hallway?"

"It's the only room with a large enough fireplace for me to use," Santa answered, "though if you mean why am I bothering you in the first place, that is a much more serious matter."

He sat down in one of the chairs in the hall while Hermione conjured a loveseat. Harry sat beside her, and Luna, leaving her prize where it was, ran over and flopped down on their laps like a cuddly blanket.

"The fae are, like phoenixes and unicorns, made up of magic as much as we are flesh and blood. Your Dark Lord has been capturing and experimenting on us, attempting to alter his own body to be like ours. Normally, he wouldn't have even accomplished this much against our combined power, but the conflict that started here has spiraled out of control and drastically weakened us."

"That doesn't make sense," murmured Hermione. "Unless all the world's fae are located in Britain, your people should be safe."

"You obviously haven't been paying much attention to what is happening outside your borders. Once this country's nonmagicals discovered that wizards existed and had attacked them, they sent the information to all their allies. Britain was the first country to enter a civil war with it's magicals; now, every country has."

Santa ignored their shock as he continued. "We fae gain our sustenance from joy and humans' belief in us. It is the reason I am so well-known; every child believes in me, and so that belief, combined with the immense burst of happiness from Christmas, strengthens our Queen, whose power in turn flows to all of her subjects.

"For centuries, we have lived in contentment with our way of life, but the assassination attempt ignited a powder keg that is harmful to all of us, Muggle, wizard, and fae. The wars are taking an enormous toll on people's lives and therefore happiness, causing us to starve. That would be bad enough, but the Queen has been so weakened by the prevalence of despair that she is unable to create new faeries to keep up with our own mortality rate. Combined with Voldemort's experiments, we are facing our extinction."

"How many of you have… passed away due to Voldemort's actions?" Hermione asked gently.

Santa sighed, then looked her fully in the eye. "Our population is less than fifteen percent of what it was before his second resurrection." The trio gaped at him. "In fact, as it stands now, the war does not matter to us; we will perish no matter how or when it ends. And that is why we need you three."

"We will help however we can," Harry told him.

The small man smiled, "I was hoping you would say that, Harry Potter. You were given a destiny to rid the world of Voldemort for good, and if it weren't for his Horcruces, you would have accomplished that twice by now. This time, the world is too far gone for you to do so again, and _that_ is how we will get around the issue."

"Of course!" Luna shouted, earning her confused looks from the two sitting under her. "Daddy read me stories when I was a little girl, and one of them said that the fae could travel through time however they wanted, backwards, forwards, and even sideways."

"Sideways?"

"That's impossible, you can't travel _sideways_ in time."

"Humans can't," said Santa, "but we can, and you will too."

Hermione glared at the faery. "Until someone tells me what moving _sideways_ is, I'm not going anywhere."

"Anywhen," Luna offered; getting her lovers to speak like sane people was a challenge, but the reward was worth it. Hermione's countenance showed she disagreed.

"Moving sideways means you will leave this time stream and enter one that is running in the same direction. If we do this, you will, in essence, be going backwards in time, but without the risk of running into other versions of you that would be present if you simply went backwards."

"Wait, if you can do that, why didn't you save yourselves that way?" This was sounding like a good opportunity to Harry, and little good had happened to him that wasn't followed by something very bad. Not even his involvement with Hermione and Luna had been without cost.

Santa sighed again. "By the time we considered it, there were too few of us to make it possible. The only way that we can even offer you this is by sacrificing the lives of every fae in this time."

"No!" Hermione shouted, "We can't ask you to kill yourselves like that! There has to be another way…"

Luna rose from her position to sit in Hermione's lap, wrapping her in a hug. "I know it sounds bad, but it's not as if they will be dead in the time we arrive in. The Fae Queen has the greatest power over time, so much that it's said she exists simultaneously in all time streams."

"Whoever said that was quite correct," Santa said. "And I feel I must correct one of your concerns: you three are not _asking_ us to die for you, we are _offering_ our assistance so you can prevent this series of events from happening again."

* * *

Santa had given them an hour to talk the faery's proposition over and left them to their own devices. They did not need the full hour; it only took Harry and Luna a couple of minutes to convince Hermione that this was the best plan to stop Voldemort once and for all. The rest of their time was spent looking over the 'Treasure Chest', as they had taken to calling it, for necessities.

When the magical Potter family was young, they had built their home in what had been part of Sherwood Forest and took up the trade of their ancestor, Robin of Locksley. They were the nightmares of the old, rich families, robbing their precious manors with a devilish combination of personal charm, polished skill, and pure nerve. Many of the most expensive, useful, or unique items they had taken were still stored in a massive vault underneath the dining room, a collection that had continued to grow until they were granted status as a Noble house and saw little reason to continue with a profession that had ceased to be exciting. By the time of Harry's grandfather Charles, the fear their unstoppable alter egos commanded had long been forgotten. Instead, the family became known for the awe-inspiring power they brought to their fights against the Dark.

"Harry! Do you think we should bring the book on making ward picks, or would we be better off with the one on increasing a person's magical capacity?"

And _that_ was the reason for their change in reputation. With a number of ways to become stronger magically, it was really no wonder they would be able to outlast any enemy they crossed wands with.

"Why can't we just take both?" he called back.

Luna's voice interrupted Hermione's response. "Because she already has all seventy editions of _Hogwarts, A History_ packed, and there isn't enough room in the trunk left for anything else!"

"_Luna!"_

"Hermione!"

"Santa!" yelled out… Santa.

Harry fought to regain his balance after jumping several feet away from the short man who had suddenly appeared at his elbow. His glare was apparently less impressive than he had hoped.

"I'm afraid you can't take any of that with you."

"What," Hermione said in a threatening whisper, "do you mean we 'can't take any of this'?"

Santa grinned. "Why, exactly that. Since you three aren't fae, it takes more effort to move you through time. All the fae are going to pass on their remaining energies to the Queen, who will then pass them and her own to me. I will only be able to focus that amount of power for a small period before it destroys me, so the easier the transfer is, the more likely we will succeed. So, nothing but your minds are taking the trip." He paused a moment to allow everything to sink in, then ordered, "Join hands with me and each other."

After they had done so, he started glowing, first a dull red, then a blinding white. With a violent shove backwards and an ear-shattering scream, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Luna Lovegood existed in the world of their birth no more.

* * *

**Whenever I think of a war between Muggles and magicals, I think of the American occupation in the Middle East. On one side is a large and powerful military machine, on the other is a small, highly mobile group of fanatics, and in the middle is everyone who would get out of the way if they could. Once enough casualties rack up in the third group, they're going to choose a side; here, it's with their fellow magicals.**

**I have seen several stories where Muggles get a new name, like "normals", "mundanes", or "nonmagicals". Honestly, I'm starting to think that it's so the authors don't have to type out "Muggle" every time. My shift key hates me now.**

**I need to make a small distinction that will be present throughout this story. A "faery" is any individual of the fae people. A "fairy" is a member of a particularly vain race of fae that has little power and often adorns Christmas trees in magical households.**

**One more point, while some events happened the same way here as they did in Deathly Hallows, others did not. The muse isn't giving any hints, so I don't know if the specific differences will be mentioned.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	2. To-Do List

**Oh, wow. 1013 hits, 56 favorites, inclusion in 11 C2s; you guys have no idea how much you rock!**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry receive anything from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes besides a few novelties he could easily afford on his own? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 2  
****To-Do List**

When Harry finally regained consciousness, he was terrified that something had gone dreadfully wrong. The air smelled sterile, like nothing could live where he now was. His entire body ached as if his bones were burning underneath his skin, and once he opened his eyes, he was blinded by the bright light pounding on his face.

A blink and a second glance revealed to him that he was in Hogwarts' Hospital Wing, the absolute _last_ place he wanted to start his new life in. The question that now plagued him was both simple and extremely important: _When in Merlin's name am I?_

He ran through his memories. _Can't be first year, I'm much too big for me to be then, and the only time I was in here, there was a giant pile of sweets next to me. I don't hear anyone else,_ he looked around to find himself alone,_ so it isn't when Lockhart vanished my bones, and I wasn't here at the end of that year, so not second. No broom fragments or Hermione and Weasley, so not third. The end of fourth is a possibility. I wasn't here overnight fifth or sixth year, and wasn't at Hogwarts at __**all**__ for seventh._

_So, looking at things **logically** like Hermione always wants us to, it's the end of fourth, after the Third Task. I was only here for one night, so Madam Pomfrey should be coming over–_

"And how are we today, Mr. Potter?"

–_right about now._

"Honestly, I would sell you my firstborn for a pain-relief potion," he said.

He knew the admission was out of character for him at this period in time, but he was too afraid of what could happen to him if he were dishonest. When he and the girls first fell into a relationship, their number one, absolutely least favorite of his traits was his habit of saying _'I'm fine'_ whenever someone asked about his health. They had spent several months attempting everything they could think of to break it, but it wasn't until he had to spend three weeks sleeping on the couch while they were clearly and _loudly_ having sex that he finally got the message. If Hermione found out that he had reverted back to his old ways, she would demand a refresher course, and he was _not_ going back to that.

Pomfrey, contrary to his expectations, did not seem disconcerted by his openness. Instead, she came over to the side of his bed and lightly patted one hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but you were exposed to the Cruciatus. There is no potion or spell that can alleviate the pain; that is why the curse is an Unforgivable. If a treatment existed, you wouldn't have to offer me anything for it. The only thing that will make you feel better is time and rest."

She drew her wand and performed a scan over his body. "Thankfully, the aftereffects are disappearing at a far faster rate than normal, so you should be completely pain-free by tomorrow."

"Does that mean I will have to stay in here today," he asked, "or can I leave and come back tonight?"

Frowning, she considered the question, which was far more cooperative than he had ever seen her. "If you promise to keep from any strenuous activity, and if you have someone to help you when you need it, _and _if you return if the pain gets worse, then yes, you can spend the day with the other students and return tonight. Tipsy!"

Harry fought hard to contain his laughter as the elf popped into the wing. Elves could do many things, but hold their liquor was not one of them. He still remembered how Winky had been after Crouch had dismissed her—

_Winky and Dobby! We traveled in time, so they're still alive!_ Both elves had died in the Battle of Hogwarts in the old timeline, but that was not going to happen now. They would live for much longer and be much happier, he would make sure of it. _In fact, unless I totally misinterpreted Dobby's words, he had wanted to bind himself to me since I freed him from Malfoy._

Harry was so deep in his thoughts that he was unaware of Tipsy's activities until the elf placed fresh clothing on the foot of his bed. His attention back on the outside world, he thanked the elf and put on his clothes, before grabbing the thousand galleon prize and departing from Madam Pomfrey's domain.

* * *

_Girls, twins, or elves?_ Harry wondered. Each choice had its own benefits.

When Voldemort rose for the third time, the trio had been at the front of the new Order of the Phoenix. In their second battle, which was also the resistance's last, both Hermione and Luna had been seriously injured; Hermione had been hit with an unknown spell and was in a coma for five weeks, while Luna had so much damage to her abdomen that she was no longer capable of bearing children. He had been reluctant to have them out of his sight for a long time following that, and they had then spent almost two years constantly in each other's presence. He wanted them next to him, but he also knew that the other two endeavors he had planned would be more successful if he were alone.

He had been unaware of how much money his stake in Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes had made for him until after the Second Voldemort War was over. The twins had only granted him a ten percent share, but in the year since they opened the store, they had made several hundred galleons for him. If he played it smart, he could get a much larger proportion of the profit, as well as some voice in what products were sold there. If he had his way, they would _never_ produce love potions again!

Dobby and Winky would be invaluable to the trio if they desired to restore Potter Manor once more, which he suspected both of his lovers did. They would also be able to find the Weasley twins and his girls and take him to their locations. Of course, Hermione still hated the idea of house-elf slavery, and even though SPEW was no more, she would have kittens when she found out. Hopefully, his and Luna's usual strategy to counter her high-handedness would likely make her stop and think about what she was saying.

His mind made up, he softly spoke. "Dobby?"

There was a pop followed by a cheerful projectile slamming into his knees. Harry laughed and pulled the elf off of him before kneeling to be on the same level.

"Harry Potter sir calls Dobby?" the elf asked, bouncing slightly on his heels.

"Yes, Dobby, I did. I had a question and was wondering if you could help me."

Dobby smiled even wider, if that was possible. "Dobby be answering any questions Harry Potter sir has."

"Thanks, Dobby." Harry ignored his companion's praises and continued, "You see, I recently found out that I have a number of family properties that haven't had anyone to take care of them, so I was wondering if you knew of any elves that were free and wanted a family or any that were in bad situations, like the one you were in with the Malfoys, and wouldn't mind being bought and working for me."

"Dobby knows elves like that," he sadly whispered, "Does Harry Potter sir know of one that he wants special?"

"No, I don't have any I want in particular. Perhaps Winky would be willing to be my elf." Harry paused to plan out his next his words. "If you weren't so happy working here, I'd steal you away in an instant."

"Harry Potter sir wants Dobby to be his elf?" This thought had Dobby's ears perk up, "Dobby is being very happy to be Master Harry Potter sir's elf!"

His little friend's enthusiasm brought a smile to his face. "I'm happy you're happy. There's just one problem, I don't know how to take on a house-elf. Is there some ritual or oath we need to go through?"

"No, Master Harry Potter sir. Master Harry Potter sir said he wanted to have Dobby as his elf, and Dobby wanted to be his elf. Now Dobby is Master Harry Potter sir's elf!"

Harry needed a moment to wade his way through the quagmire that was Dobby's speech, but was ultimately unsurprised by what the elf was saying. Over the years, he had learned that magic was more about intent than anything else, and since he and Dobby intended the same thing, it made a sort of twisted sense that that was all binding an elf to the family took. He shook himself out of his musings and continued with his plan. _That's one brought in, now for the other._

"Well, that was certainly easier than I expected, Dobby, but I have a lot of properties that need to be restored. I don't want to rely only on you and have you hurt yourself or become exhausted. Would you be willing to work with another elf," he backtracked when he saw Dobby's downcast expression, "maybe one whose responsibilities was caring for the house while yours was caring for the family?"

"Dobby would not mind having Winky works with him. Missy Hermy and missy Lunie be needing an elf, too, and Dobby knows not if he can take care of alls three."

Harry nodded. "Yes, Hermione and Luna could also need help. Wait," he stared at Dobby, "how did you know that I'm with them?"

The elf looked at him like he had asked how to turn himself into an blue elephant. "Dobby knows about Master Harry Potter sir. Dobby has to, to be the best elf Master Harry Potter sir can have. But Dobby be keeping his Master's secrets and not be telling that Master Harry Potter sir and his missies cames from the future." Dobby bounced on his feet once more. "Dobby be making sure Winky be able to take care of Master Harry Potter sir. Calls if Dobby be needed." With a snap of his fingers, the exceptionally devoted elf was gone.

Harry stood where he was for several minutes before he made his way from the corridor. He needed to hear someone speak in an understandable manner to get Dobby's peculiar speech out of his head.

Time to hunt down the Weasley twins.

* * *

Fred and George were master pranksters, and as their position demanded, had a large workspace in addition to a number of small caches hidden around the school. Normally, finding their inner sanctum would be impossible. Normally, no one would be able to even get close.

Normally, the one pursuing them didn't have years of experience with the Marauder's Map.

As the twins had told Harry long ago, there were seven passageways marked out on the Map. Filch knew four of them, but three were safe. One was the route behind the statue of the one-eyed crone on the third floor that led to Honeydukes. Another was the tunnel running from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. The third, behind a mirror on the second floor, had collapsed, and it was to this last that Harry walked. Upon coming to the mirror, he tapped it with his wand and whispered, "I am the fairest of them all."

He grinned as the mirror seemingly melted from the wall. There had to be some way to alter the passwords for these passages, as it was highly unlikely that what was the Founders originally chose; he wondered who had been inspired by a fairy tale.

Harry had to carefully pick out his path in the hall beyond the mirror. The room itself was in magnificent condition, but along both walls were long lines of tables covered with partially rendered ingredients, and on the floor were rows and rows of cauldrons, each busily simmering away. He took a brief look at some of them as he walked to the end of the passage, and recognized pain-relievers next to swelling solution, and he thought he noticed one cauldron full of a possible Polyjuice variant. The smell was so terrible and his eyes so busy finding safe places to set down his feet that he had to follow his ears to find the dastardly tricksters.

Thankfully they were present; he would have hated to have come all this way to discover they were not even in the room. They were busy weighing livers and measuring volumes of plant extract, so busy in fact that they had yet to notice the intruder in their laboratory cum playground. An evil smirk stretched across his face as he magically silenced his footsteps and snuck up behind them.

"What's that?" Even if they tried to prank him from now until the day he died, it would still not diminish the hilarity of the _'Marauders' Successors'_ almost literally jumping out of their skins.

"How did you get in here!" demanded one brother.

"And why!" shouted the other.

Harry's smile grew so large that it began to hurt his face. "The Map, and to talk to you."

"And what would…"

"…Harry Potter…"

"…Triwizard Champion…"

"…object of girls' adoration…"

"…and fear of evil Dark wizards everywhere…"

"…want with us?"

Tired of watching a verbal tennis match, Harry held up one hand. "I have a, business proposition, you could say. It stands to make a _lot_ of money if done right, but I will only reveal it to you if you two will _stop doing that!"_ His ire purged, he took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Okay, Harry, don't blow your top. How about you and I chat over there while this brother of mine continues what we were doing before your intriguing words?" the brother on the left said as he placed his arm around Harry's shoulders and guided him back towards the entrance. "Fred and I were in the middle of a somewhat delicate stage in our brewing."

At the beginning of the hallway, George turned to him. "Now, what is this about some _business_ we can help you with?"

"I heard through the grapevine that Bagman's done a runner to get away from the goblins, so I figured that you two still hadn't gotten the money he owes you from the World Cup."

"That's right," George snarled, "over thirty-seven galleons gone. It took us eight years to collect just that much. We wanted to open a joke shop, but without any funds, that's not going to happen."

George was exactly where Harry wanted him now. Over the past years, he had discovered just how much power lies, manipulation, and misdirection truly held. They were how Dumbledore moved him like a pawn on the chessboard, how Voldemort made the most arrogant wizards in Britain little more than his personal attack dogs, and how he and his loves had survived in the chaos of the Magical-Muggle civil war.

"Well, you know that the prize for the Triwizard Champion was a thousand galleons, quite a bit of money. Now, I don't need it myself, but I was thinking that my favorite pranksters might want it to open their joke shop…"

"That is a very generous offer. What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing much," Harry said with a faux innocent expression, "just a small voice in the company and a bit of the incoming money. Net, of course, not gross."

George sighed. "How much?"

"Forty percent."

"What?! You want ownership of almost half of the business! Not going to happen, _so_ not going to happen. We can give you… fifteen percent, but nothing more."

"Then I guess I'll take my thousand galleons elsewhere." At George's shock, Harry knew he had him. The key was to keep the red-head looking where he wanted, the size and cost of the investment, and not where he really _really_ didn't, why Harry wanted the incoming money so badly when he had implied he had more than enough. Fixing Potter Manor wouldn't be cheap, and since he was no longer an adult, he had limited access to the main family vault. Besides, the twins had stood back and let Molly, Ron and Ginny go on with their plans; they deserved a bit of payback.

"George, George, George. Georgie–you don't mind if I call you Georgie, right?–you seem to have a bit of a misconception. This isn't a negotiation; you need my money more than I want a share in a company that has no guarantee of success. I'll be nice, though, and only take ten percent for the next two years, let you have time to graduate and set the shop up. If you do well and show me a reason for expansion, either in product or location, I could be willing to float you the cash free of interest, a better deal than you'll get from Gringotts.

"So, George Fabian Weasley, do we have a deal?"

Harry left their 'office' half an hour later, lighter by a thousand galleons but with a freshly written contract and a dark sense of satisfaction. His errands run, it was time to find his darling lovers.

* * *

**Yes, this story is going to be light-hearted, I promise. We just have some setup to get through first. That should only take a few more chapters (I hope), then we get to see our delightful trio have a little dastardly fun, starting with Harry versus the Order of the Ugly Duckling.**

**Many stories talk about how Harry practically lives in the hospital wing, but I couldn't remember that many times he was in there when I typed this chapter. Maybe it's one of those commonly "known" but absolutely wrong facts that just built up in fanon? Poppy is never developed as a character, but I have a few ideas for her, so if she reappears as a bigger player, don't be surprised.**

**I love Dobby, but I _hate_ how he talks. Not quite as bad as Fleur's accent, but close. And Fred and George? No way I'm going to write the two of them together again if I can help it.**

**I've always wondered where the twins did their brewing. I mean, it's not like there are that many out-of-order bathrooms laying around the castle.**

**A quick note on the exchange rate. Rowling said that a galleon was equivalent to five pounds; she also said she was bad at math. From the only item we get a price for that has a nonmagical equivalent (the _Daily Prophet_ in book 1, which cost five knuts), I calculate that a knut is 10¢, a sickle about $3, and a galleon about $50. The twins' "life savings" of 37 galleons, 15 sickles, and 3 knuts would be just under $1900, while the Tournament prize is _$50,000_. Suddenly it makes a hell of a lot more sense why students would be willing to risk life and limb in the Triwizard Tournament to begin with.**

* * *

**Lydia-Hood:** Let me hit your points in order: it wasn't that there was no happiness at all, it just went down so far that it really weakened the fey and left them vulnerable to wizards and Muggle weapons; it's not a world war, per se, but simultaneous civil wars all over the world; and they're not saving the world, they're saving their own lives. There is such chaos that it's a danger just trying to buy food, so when they have a chance to get themselves to safety, they're going to grab it with both hands.

**Penny is wise:** Nope, Voldie's not the sanest man on the block, but what really made it blow up in his face this time was his arrogance. Well, that and the fact that no Pureblood has any idea of how to be inconspicuous enough in the Muggle world to avoid security.

**Silently Watches out.**


	3. Fights, Plots, and Suicide

**It may not be clear by now, but I have a thing for black humor. There are a couple of exchanges here that are in that vein, so please don't take them too seriously. You'll know them when you see them.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry allow Voldie to kill him without proof that the Dark Lord would be defeated afterwards? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 3  
****Fights, Plots, and Suicide**

Harry whistled as he walked into the library. He had an absolutely devoted elf, soon to be two, and a source of income. As soon as there were two beautiful young women hanging off his arms, he would be as happy as a pig in mud, and the _Point Me_ spell showed a delightful pair of arm-warmers just up ahead.

He quickly found them, sitting and talking quietly. He stalked over to Hermione's chair and put his hands on her shoulders. "Hey there, pretty girl. You come here often?"

Her face was hidden, but the smile she wore came out in her voice. "So what if I do? If you're hitting on me, you might as well walk away now. My boyfriend is the jealous type."

"Ah, I can take him, show you how a _real_ man fights."

"He doesn't fight fair, it'll be over before you even know he's here." She turned around and gave him a once-over. "Besides, I'm not interested. I like my guys taller."

"Ouch!" Placing a hand over his heart, he looked over at Luna, who was reading a book on Transfiguration history upside-down. "What about you, honey?"

She did not even spare him a glance. "My boyfriend is the same way. Same person, actually."

"Some guys get all the luck." All three of them laughed as he sat down. "So what have you been up to, my lovelies?"

Luna put her book down. "Nothing much, we were waiting to make sure you were up before we looked for you, though we didn't expect you would be out already."

"Neither did I," said Harry, "but Poppy was a whole lot nicer to me this morning than she's ever been before. Maybe she finally fell for my charm."

"Did you ask to leave or just demand to be let out?" Hermione questioned.

He smiled sheepishly. "Asked."

"That does make more sense than her falling for your 'charms'. I don't mind Hermione, but I won't share a bed with someone old enough to be my mother, no matter _how_ perky her tits are." Harry and Hermione did not appreciate the mental image the blonde had invoked, and made their displeasure clear by tossing her over their shoulders and departing from the library. Well, he had her on his shoulder, Hermione had just taken the two bags that were on the table.

"Naughty nurses aside, we should have a chat. Have any ideas, 'Mione?"

"Requirement?" Though it took Harry a moment to interpret, he supported the suggestion. The Room of Requirement would give them the privacy they needed for their planning.

"Well, since we're all agreed," Luna said before sharply slapping Harry's arse, "mush!"

The walk to the seventh floor was uneventful, though the trio did receive strange looks from the students they passed. They finally arrived at the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls. Hermione began pacing, muttering a list of demands, and opened the door that had appeared in the wall. "Okay you two, inside. Luna, take your hands out of his pants."

"Awww."

The Room had become a cozy sitting room, complete with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and large circular couch. Sitting down, the door melted into the wall and the lovers became more serious. "Harry, we're here, healthy, much weaker than we are used to, and severely lacking in funds. How quickly can you get the Treasure Chest open again?"

"Er…" Harry knew he would have to tell them about Dobby, but he was hoping for a better opening. "Soon, maybe early next month."

"That fast, how? Even if it's only 1994, there's still a lot of damage and neglect that has to be repaired to get to the vault." She paused as she looked at his expression. "What are you trying to hide?"

"Hide? I'm not hiding anything."

"Yes, you are. I can see it."

Looking at Hermione, then Luna, he knew the jig was up; he pulled Luna into his lap as an attractive human shield before he spoke. "Dobby was willing to help out. Quite happy to do so, too."

"You can't make him quit his job here, he couldn't get a place with any other family because he wanted to be paid. If he left, practically the only person who would take him in would be…" Her confusion rapidly morphed to anger. "You didn't. Harry, tell me you didn't do what I think you did!"

Knowing he was dead meat, he tightened his grip on the girl who _didn't_ currently want to use his guts as garters. "So Luna, how about them Harpies?"

"You know I prefer the Arrows, though there are several nice-looking Harpies. Remind me to put money on the Tornadoes, actually, considering they win the English League next year."

"Anyone else you want to put money on?"

"I'm not sure, but right now, not you."

"Harry. _James. POTTER!"_

He reluctantly glanced at his steaming girlfriend. An out right about now would be a blessing from heaven. "Have I ever told you how hot you look when you're angry?"

"Did. You. Enslave. Dobby. Or. Not?" She ignored the compliment, though it was a nice try. She'd ask him if he meant it later.

He looked anywhere but her. "Is it truly enslavement if he wants it?"

"Haaaaaarrrr_rrryyyy…_"

"Yes, I did bond with Dobby. He wanted to, I like having him on-call, as it were, so he can help us out if we need him to, and this way he will be tap into my, the family's, magic in case he has to fight like he did in the Battle. I don't see why you're so mad; he's been planning to be my elf practically since I freed him from the Malfoys in '92, and you know that I'm not going to abuse him. Merlin's beard, he'll probably be the best treated elf in Britain."

"That's not the point, Harry, and you know it! He was free and happy, and now you're dragging him back to the chains he fought so hard to get out of–"

"Enough." Luna said sternly. She rarely acted this way, but when she did, the other two knew to listen, as it was always important. "Hermione, you are out of line. Harry will treat Dobby as well as he always has, and Dobby was and is devoted to him. The 'chains' you speak of were due to his forced servitude to the Malfoy family; here, he bonded with Harry because it was _his choice._ You cannot say you are fighting for his freedom and happiness and then turn right around to deny him the ability to act on that freedom, even if it's returning to the bond.

"And Harry, you know how Hermione feels about house-elves. I'm not saying you need our permission, you're a grown man after all. But perhaps you should have informed her a little more tactfully, or at least sent us a warning beforehand so she could get everything out of her system.

"There is also the fact that you still have little experience with them. Dobby is not a pet that will instantly forgive you if you offend him, as much as he acts like it sometimes."

Harry nodded at her chastisement, he could have broken the news more gently. That last statement of hers, though, was a bit much. "Are you sure that _you_ want to bring up the proper care of pets? Do I need to remind you of poor Alex and Bobby?"

Her bright flush was confirmation enough, she would rather not have that discussed again. She had found Alex the snake and Bobby the rabbit in the Manor's yard and thought they would make wonderful pets. She put them in a cage, and when she came back an hour later, she found that Alex had strangled Bobby and then suffocated trying to eat him. Needless to say, that was not her brightest decision, and he and Hermione had ribbed on her mercilessly for it.

"Any _other_ decisions you made this morning that we're not going to like?" snarked Hermione.

_Great,_ Harry thought, _now she's angry __**and**__ hurt. Terrific._ "I gave the Triwiz money to Fred and George, getting a bigger cut of the profit from their store this time."

This perked her up, having parents that owned their own clinic made her a little cautious in money matters. "How much?"

"Ten percent for two years, forty after that." He enjoyed the surprise on their faces; he would freely admit he was not nearly as intelligent as the girls, but he was by no means an idiot. "So, we've covered our days, can we please figure out what we will do from here?"

Hermione settled back onto the couch while Luna returned to her spot now that she was in no danger of becoming collateral damage. The blonde was the first to answer, "Well, the Fae Queen is counting on us to get rid of Voldie-monkey, so we certainly have that goal."

"True," Hermione said, "and even if she weren't, he would still come after you. Killing him would be in our own interests. Actually, killing all the Death Eaters would be, too; Voldemort is strong magically, but most of his power comes from their support and positions in the Ministry. Without them, he's just a wizard."

"Yep, just a wizard. A powerful, ruthless, amoral, devious, and currently _immortal_ wizard. That won't be hard at all." He sighed, he may be twenty-four in his mind, but he had the magic and body of a malnourished not-quite-fifteen-year-old. _If we couldn't take Voldie out of the picture before we left, how can we do it now?_ He asked that question out loud.

"Well, that's obvious, Harry!" Luna cheered. "We have to turn ourselves into Nargles. He won't expect _that!"_

Hermione frowned, "Nargles? What do the… Not Nargles, foxes. We become the Foxes!"

Harry was now doubly confused. He knew 'Nargle' was the term Luna used for the girls in Ravenclaw who routinely and casually bullied her and stole her possessions, but he had no clue what they had to do with foxes. Hermione seemed to understand, though, so what could they mean? She wasn't taking about the Animagus process, no one could take on more than one form. Perhaps there was a similarity between them? Both were said to be mischievous, and they were willing to openly steal when an opportunity presented itself. The Quibbler labeled Nargles as pests, and many people hated foxes, especially in Nottinghamshire, where Potter Manor was located, since they were endemic there. The Potter family had never felt that way, though; in fact, they had a special regard for foxes due to–

_Due to the Hooded Foxes, the name the Potters took when we were thieves! If we rob the Death Eater bastards blind, we can claim their wealth and family artifacts while creating a chance to kill them. It's perfect!_

"You two are geniuses! We take their money, and not only do we have more resources, Voldie has less!"

"And if we make sure that they _know_ that it's a group of thieves, we can know that they don't know that it's us, though we'll have to leave enough false trails so they can't know what we know they don't know, because if they know, then we will be in a lot of risk until we know that they know."

"Luna, I love you, and Harry loves you, but please _shut up_," Hermione said, holding her head. "You're giving me a headache. If you have something to say, keep your thoughts in a straight line, not a circle."

"But Hermione, my thoughts weren't in a circle, they were in a spiral. A circle has no end point, but I knew exactly where I was going. Perhaps you're having too much sex if you can't think clearly; I know I can't when Harry's inside me, doing that one thing with his—"

"Luna!"

"Moving. On." Harry, not for the first time, wondered how much easier life would be with only one of them in the picture. _Easier, but certainly less fun._ "If we're going to cause chaos as the Foxes and distract the Eaters from figuring out that it's us, we need to have a distinguishing mark, something for them to focus on. It also shouldn't have anything to do with the three of us, so no lightning bolts, or books, or creatures from the Quibbler."

This was right up Hermione's alley. "Well, we could create a variation on the Dark Mark, something mocking, like an obscene caricature. Or, perhaps, something with a fae theme."

"A purple unicorn!"

Harry and Hermione stared at their younger lover. What was she thinking now?

"And if we put it on a north-east facing wall, we could use it to attract Japanese tentacle monsters. They certainly wouldn't connect us with us then."

"Luna, babe, were you dropped on your head as a child?" Hermione asked.

She nodded. "Daddy went to a carnival when I was a few months old and thought I would be fun to juggle." She cocked her head, "I love him, and he has many talents, but juggling isn't one of them."

"Okay, while that explains quite a bit, it doesn't quite answer our question. What mark should we use?"

"I have an idea," Harry said, "but I'm not sure. The Potters were never connected with the Hooded Foxes; it should be safe. If we want the Purebloods to be distracted by an ancient group of thieves, we need to ensure they know who we are. So, a snickering fox?"

The girls each thought about it, before nodding. The Foxes were infamous, at least according to Luna, a nightmare to the rich and powerful. If the Death Eaters discovered the historic exploits of the group that was breaking their fancy wards and leaving them penniless, their terror would rapidly become the trio's best weapon. The shoe would, finally, be on the other foot.

"If we just attack Death Eaters, they will eventually figure out who is behind the thefts." Hermione thought aloud. "Thus the question becomes 'Should we also rob the rich neutral Purebloods?'"

Luna answered her. "It's simpler than that. The question is, 'In the years before and after Voldemort's third rise, did the neutral Purebloods do anything to absolve themselves of responsibility?' They did nothing, so they are just as culpable as the bigots who got the ugly tattoos. I say we turn all non-Light Purebloods into paupers."

"I second the motion," Harry joked.

"I suppose I vote in favor, too," said Hermione. "It's unanimous, let's twist the wealth distribution of this world so far beyond normal that they never recover!"

The trio smiled; for the first time in two years, they had a plan beyond living to the next day. Like a veil had been lifted, they had a vision of a world they were not afraid or ashamed to be a part of.

"We can also get some practice in by taking out the Horcruces." Hermione stretched out on the couch. "Voldemort never checks in on them. He's new to his body, so if we destroy them quickly, he might think that the pain he's dealing with is the ritual, not his soul fragments dispersing to the Underworld, or wherever monsters like him go."

Harry agreed. "The locket is at Grimmauld, the ring at the Gaunt shack, the chalice is at Gringotts; I would prefer we get help from the goblins for that one again." There was no argument from the girls; if it weren't for Griphook, they would have had to attempt a break in, which would have almost guaranteed their deaths. "The diadem is here, so we should actually snag that one before we go home tomorrow. The diary is already gone. That just leaves Nagini, which will have to be killed last, and…"

He trailed off, his blood running cold. From Luna's and Hermione's faces, they had figured out the same problem he had. There were _two_ Horcruces in Hogwarts right now, the diadem and his scar.

"Maybe… maybe since it was destroyed last time, that change will carry over?" Hermione suggested weakly.

Luna had never had any use for self-deception, and she was not going to put up with it from her female lover. "The Horcrux was in his _scar_, 'Mione, not his mind. We have to deal with it now. It was never proven that Voldemort could use the connection to look into Harry's memories, but we can't rely on assumption."

"Well, we don't have any basilisk venom, and I'd rather not be immolated with Fiendfyre, so…" He didn't finish the sentence, didn't have to. There were four methods that could destroy a Horcrux, not the two Dumbledore thought. Those he had known about destroyed the vessel, leaving nothing for the soul piece to latch on to. The others separated the vessel and fragment directly: the Dementor's Kiss, which Harry would not agree to under any circumstances, or a spell that ripped the target's soul from his body.

"Luna, it looks like you will have to do it. Voldie used my blood already, so I have a pseudo-Horcrux. Make sure you aim at the scar, though, just in case."

She came up to kiss him passionately, followed by Hermione. Then she stood back, her face scrunched up as she gathered the necessary emotion. When her eyes opened, he flinched at the intensity of the hate she displayed in his direction, even as he knew none of it was for him. She raised her wand and took careful aim.

"_Avada Kedavra._"

* * *

**Hermione carried on her crusade for at least three years in canon, I find it difficult to believe she would suddenly accept it and move right along. I do find her a bit of a hypocrite on the subject, though, for the reasons Luna stated.**

**The tale of Alex and Bobby is not going to be how Luna normally acts. She left them to get some food and bedding, was distracted, and forgot she put a snake and a rabbit in the same cage. Happens to the best of us, but generally not to such humorous effect.**

**I promised you innuendo, here's innuendo. Luna's description is about as graphic as I'm going to get, though; thanks to the admins' new stance, we have to watch our backs now with this kind of stuff.**

**I've read fanfictions where Voldemort can get inside Harry's head, but in canon, that is really just Dumbledore's supposition. As far as I can find evidence, the link was one-way, Voldie to Harry.**

**I have a little game for you, dear readers. There are three fanfiction references hidden in this chapter. The first to identify all of them will get a prize of some sort.**

* * *

**southern-reader:** He's maxed out in fanfiction, but canon never gives a definite limit, so I'm going with "you can always make more, but it makes you even _crazier_". As for Poppy, I agree that she should have known. I can see it three different ways: she was bound by her employment contract to tell the Headmaster (and _only_ the Headmaster), magical school nurses just aren't trained to spot abuse like their Muggle counterparts, or she was incompetent/sadistic. Since this story is (as per the challenge) manip!Dumbledore, point the blame at the white-haired one.

**The Dain:** In chapter 1, I mentioned that it took Voldie four years to be resurrected, which is plenty of time for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes to become profitable. You're right, though, that Harry's share in the company won't make him much immediately; he plans to spend a lot of his trust repairing Potter Manor, and he wants to recoup his losses _eventually_. Other than that, though, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

**apAidan:** Ha ha, Dobby is a pain to listen to, alright. And those are both good reasons for why the hospital cliché arose, thank you. The twins are just a pair of talented jokers who, like teenage boys the world over, have difficulty seeing the long-term consequences of their actions, while Harry, being mentally older, can. They're unhappy with him at the moment, but they'll come to see he has some good ideas. As for the potion debacle, they were raised by Molly just like Ron and Ginny, so they don't quite understand that using love potions, even just to get your crush's attention, crosses several ethical boundaries.

**Silently Watches out.**


	4. Audience with the Queen

**Alright, the three references were: _Larceny, Lechery, and Luna Lovegood_ by Rorschach's Blot (tentacle monster, the name Foxes, and their mark to a certain extent), _Death's Pride_ by Paladeus ("Mush!", just too funny not to use), and _A Black Comedy_ by nonjon (the obscene caricature of the Dark Mark that was used by Harry and Sirius as the Death Eater Bandits). Damn, nobody got them all, so I guess I'll just have to eat all these cookies myself. I'll see if I can fit in another round of references in a later chapter.**

**This chapter is more serious, only a few jokes, but every chapter can't be a laugh riot. This isn't a crack fic, after all.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Dumbledore manipulate Harry, even after his own death? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 4  
****Audience with the Queen**

"_Luna, it looks like you will have to do it. Voldie used my blood already, so I have a pseudo-Horcrux. Make sure you aim at the scar, though, just in case."_

_She came up to kiss him passionately, followed by Hermione. Then she stood back, her face scrunched up as she gathered the necessary emotion. When her eyes opened, he flinched at the intensity of the hate she displayed in his direction, even as he knew none of it was for him. She raised her wand and took careful aim._

"Avada Kedavra_."_

* * *

Harry had died twice, and each time was a different experience. The first time he died at the end of Voldemort's wand, and the lying old goat had met him in Limbo, which looked remarkably like King's Cross Station. The second time he had technically died was when they were transferred to this new time stream, and he hadn't waited anywhere, but simply woke up. Now, he was in a forest glade.

He looked around, seeing nothing past the trees that marked the boundaries of the circular clearing. Once again he was nude, so he imagined a soft robe and put on the one that appeared. After he had dressed, he noticed something very wrong with his location: there were no sounds. No birds, no insects, not even any wind rustling the leaves. His wand was gone, but that was expected, so he instead primed a wandless _Protego_ shield in his left hand. Wandless magic was difficult, and he could only use a half-dozen or so spells in that manner, but the Shield Charm was thankfully one of them.

A snapping branch broke the silence directly ahead of him. Out stepped a woman, but one unlike any other he had ever seen. She possessed a slight figure, covered with a slip dress of innumerable shades of green. Her eyes and hair were as blue as the sky, set in a tanned face, and her ears—

Harry stared, for no human had ears that long, thin, or pointed.

"I certainly didn't expect you to visit me so soon, my champion," the woman said, and Harry was distracted by the undertone of her voice, like hundreds of silver bells, before he comprehended the words she spoke and identified her.

He clumsily bowed. "Y-your Majesty, I had no idea I would come to your realm. We were just destroying a Horcrux, the one in my scar, and the only safe way to do that was the Killing Curse, so I was actually expecting to go to Limbo or somewhere—"

Her laugh interrupted his babbling. "I did not mean to sound dipleased, Harry James Potter, I was simply making an observation. Come, sit with me." A pair of mushrooms sprouted and grew to be large enough to sit upon comfortably, and Harry took the one closest to him. "Now that we are situated, please continue."

"Er, that was everything. I'm not sure how I got here, exactly."

"You came because I wanted to speak with you. I know what happened in your original timeline, and I apologize for the stress I have caused you moving you to the one you are in now."

"There wasn't much stress; we were more or less spinning our wheels where, _when_ we were. We should actually be thanking you, your Majesty. Um," Harry paused, not at all sure how his question would be received, "what should I call you?"

"I have gone by many names: Astarte, Hecate, Morrighan, Titania." She laughed again. "At the moment, I prefer Lilith. Your thanks are accepted. Now, let us _'get down to business'_, I believe is the human expression.

"I have few expectations for you. Kill the man once known as Tom Marvolo Riddle; prevent the various magical species from being discovered, or at least killed, by nonmagical humans; keep the fae involvement in your actions a secret. Meet those three goals, and I will release you from your debt to me."

"Debt?" This threw Harry for a loop; they had been pulled from their time in payment for offing Voldemort, not as a favor. When had he become personally indebted to the Faery Queen?

"Yes, silly. Never _ever_ thank a faery. It shows they have done more for you than you have for them; as such, you will still owe them something."

"I see," he said, "though I am a bit confused. You're the queen of the Fae; why are you telling me how to stay out of a debt to your people?"

"You are no mere human, Harry James Potter, not to us. You are my champion, my sword in the fight against Tom Marvolo Riddle. Left unchecked, he could drive my children to extinction here like he did in your timeline."

He listened intently, trying to puzzle out what it was about her words that niggled something in his brain. "So you want us to stop him before he gets to that point here, I understand that, but why move us around the timesteams? Santa made it clear that we were moving sideways, but only our minds, so… what was the point? Why couldn't we stay in our world and move backwards?"

Lilith sighed and settled into a different position on her mushroom. "I hoped I could avoid this, but you should know. Each timestream is different. Generally these differences are minor and contribute little to the actions of individuals, but sometimes they are more significant. In both this timeline and your own, Tom Marvolo Riddle paid attention to 'fairy tales' once the world of magic had been revealed to him. Even now, the incarnation of this world has plans to eventually take fae magic. As Santa told you, that would normally be impossible, yet in your timeline, his war weakened us enough that he could integrate our power into his own. He was rapidly increasing in strength; we called on you because he had recently stolen the magic of the Winter Lady, one of my most trusted and powerful children. In a short time, it would be possible for him to kill me and take my own power."

"So you sacrificed your subjects, your _children_, just to protect yourself?!" Harry shouted.

"Do you think I _enjoyed_ killing my own children?" Lilith asked, her voice simmering in anger, and Harry knew he had pushed too far. "It was an incredibly difficult choice, one I wish I had never had to make, but the fae in your time were going to die, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. All I could do was protect those of my children that had a chance.

"Tell me, do you understand what it is like to slowly starve?" He nodded. "And when you were starving, would you have accepted a quick death to end the pain?" Ashamed, he nodded again. "Then you understand why I permitted them to die as they did. It was impossible for me to pull them away from that time, and my death would have caused their deaths if the lack of happiness had not done so already. They saved your life, your lovers' lives, and the lives of all their brothers and sisters. For that, they will be mourned and praised in equal measure.

"My children have incarnations of themselves in each timeline, but I exist in this, dimension you could call it, outside of time's flow, where I direct all the fae in all times. If Tom Marvolo Riddle conquered me in _your_ timeline, he would have therefore conquered me in _all_ timelines. Instead of all the fae in one world dying, we would be completely extinct. I could not allow that.

"Even now, your Tom Marvolo Riddle's war rages in your old world. I cannot allow the version in _this_ world to do the same."

"But he hasn't weakened you here, so now that you know that he's a threat, you can stop him yourself. Couldn't you have just used some power from other worlds to do so and defend the fae in ours, as well?"

She shook her head. "The amount of power I can wield in each timeline is determined by the belief in us, the happiness, and the number of faeries present in them. In yours, I was so weak that I was in danger from Tom Marvolo Riddle. Santa's actions not only rescued you from a doomed situation, they also allowed me to save myself by removing my presence from that timeline, isolating your version of the enemy from all others.

"I understand your confusion about our lack of action. I have already said that Tom Marvolo Riddle learned from the tales he heard, and he surrounds himself constantly with iron. That metal is lethal to us; in large quantities, its very presence is toxic. I need a human to kill him, someone who does not share our weakness. I need _you_, Harry James Potter."

"I understand, and I accept your charge. I am also sorry for insulting you with my words."

Lilith looked him over a moment, seemingly judging his sincerity. "I will accept your apologies in this instance, as you were speaking out of ignorance and in defense of my children. I will not allow a second occurrence to stand without consequence." She looked into the sky and frowned, displeased with whatever she saw. "It appears our time is up. We have more to discuss, but it will have to wait until the next time we may speak. I will have one of my children contact you on the Autumnal Equinox; in the meantime, continue with any plans you have as long as you do not forget the reason you are here in this time to begin with."

A fierce wind began to blow, and it swept him away from the glade before he could say another word.

* * *

"I think he's coming back."

_Hermione's voice_, he thought. She sounded like she had been crying recently, but considering what they had to do, no one would fault her for it.

"He's not coming back, 'Mione, he's already here. Who did you meet in Limbo this time, sweetie?"

Harry opened his eyes to find Hermione's cinnamon and Luna's silver above him, both glistening with tears. "I didn't get to Limbo. Instead, I had a very interesting conversation with Lilith, the queen of the Fae."

The girls reached out and pulled him to his feet, then brushed down his back as if they were trying to remove any dirt. Harry knew the truth; they were touching him to make sure that he really was back amongst the living. "We talked a bit about what she expects from us and why she brought us here in the first place." He rapidly summarized their discussion and watched his lovers frown as he finished.

Hermione was the first to speak. "I knew it was too good to be true. There was no way they would help us for nothing."

"She is demanding no more than we had already planned to do, or not do as the case may be," Luna said, "but I'm more concerned with whether or not she's going to place additional conditions on us."

"Either way, there's nothing we can do about it now. We have, what, three months until we get a chance to question her again? Let's just worry about what we can do right now."

"Like handle this?" Hermione asked, holding aloft Ravenclaw's diadem. "It turns out we didn't have to leave here to access the Room of Hidden Things, we just concentrated on needing it."

"Good, that'll be two out of the way. Have you already destroyed it?"

Luna whimpered and wrapped herself around him. "You know Hermione can't summon the necessary hate for the Killing Curse, and I was a bit preoccupied." She burrowed her head into his chest, then shot back. "Also, you need a shower; dying makes you smell like wet Snorkack, and that is just _not_ appealing."

"Fine," he sighed, "Hermione, you created the room, so you get to make the shower. _Plain_ shampoo, please; I think we proved that the mango-pomegranate-cucumber-berry-whatever the hell it was you bought was a worse stink than wet Snorkack."

"It smelled just fine," she muttered, before having the Room produce a shower stall. He walked in, leaving the girls alone again.

Hermione waited until the shower had been running for a few seconds, then cast a charm toward the stall. Harry's manly cry of "Ayyyyyiiiiieeee!" let her know she had succeeded in hitting the shower head with a freezing charm.

"That's what you get for insulting the pomegranate!"

* * *

After Harry's, by necessity, cold shower, he exited with dried clothes and a glare and rejoined the girls at the couch. "I _will_ get you back for that, 'Mione, you know I will. Now, where is the Horcrux?"

Luna set it in the middle of the couch's center clearing, then scooted out of the line of fire on one side while Hermione did the same on the other. He focused on his hatred of Voldemort for destroying his life—twice, in fact—of Bellatrix for killing Sirius, of Vernon and Petunia for stuffing him in a cupboard and treating him like rubbish for ten long and horrible years, of Dumbledore for leaving him at the Dursleys', of Ron for betraying them, not once, but _several_ times, each worse than the one before. Feeling he did not yet have enough intent, he augmented the spell with his anger at Molly for potioning them, at the DA for rolling over when Voldemort returned, at Dudley for starting several of his 'witchhunts', at Ginny for being such a delusional, jealous, self-serving little bint… He wished the soul fragment a horrible, painful death and said the words. "_Avada Kedavra._"

A tight beam of pale green lanced into the diadem, leaving no visible damage but causing it to give out a high-pitched scream. He waited a few moments before reaching out and picking it up. "Looks good to me. Did one of you dispel the Madness Curse on it?"

Hermione raised her hand. He nodded and put the crown back on the couch before glaring at his wand. "That was more difficult than I expected; it was as bad as after I became the master of the Elder Wand."

After defeating Voldemort, he had found that his first wand was difficult to control, much like some of the wands they had picked off of Snatchers that had attacked them when they were looking for the Horcruces. Originally, he had assumed it was because the Elder Wand was just that much more powerful than ordinary wands, but now it was looking like there was something else at fault. "What do you think happened?" he asked.

They both pondered this for a moment, and finally Hermione thought out loud, "Well, we know a wand 'chooses' a witch or wizard and works best for that individual. If anyone else uses it without having 'won' its loyalty, or the first wielder 'loses' it, they can get a weak response. So, did you do something to lose you its loyalty, Harry?"

"Harry hasn't used it for anything since we came back, and I doubt using the Killing Curse did it; he cast it several times on the Hunt and never had any issues," Luna said. "No, what I think happened is that that wand never chose _Harry_ at all. Its brother chose Voldemort, so I think when you were in Ollivander's, it actually chose the _Horcrux_ as its wielder!"

"And since the Horcrux is gone, my wand doesn't recognize me as the same person. I guess I'll have to get to Ollivander for a new one as soon as I can escape 'Durzkaban'…" He trailed off before apprehension moved onto his face, "The Trace! We need to find some way to get rid of it before we leave, or else our summer plans are already dead in the water!"

Before he could work himself up too much, a small scrap of parchment appeared in front of them. Hermione picked it up and read it, then pointed her wand at Luna's and softly spoke an incantation in a language that clearly wasn't Latin. "That should do it for you, Luna. Harry, give me yours, then I'll perform the spell on mine." She repeated the process on the holly wand, then used that to break the spell on her own vine one. "Alright, that's all of them clean. Who knew that Hogwarts had the way to get rid of the Trace?"

"None know all the secrets of Hogwarts," Luna said mysteriously while climbing to her feet. "It's almost lunch time, and since _someone_ didn't make me pancakes last night, I'm hungry." With that, the trio left the Room of Requirement.

* * *

**The rule about "don't thank the fae" comes from Patricia Briggs's _Mercy Thompson_ series. I heartily recommend it.**

**A chat between myself and Paladeus a while back fleshed out quite a bit of Lilith's and Harry's conversation. I hope it made the faery's motivations clearer. And before anyone asks, none of the fae care about Hermione or Luna, just the man destined to kill Voldie. The only reason the girls were brought along for the ride is that Lilith wasn't sure that Harry would agree to her offer if he had to go alone.**

**Like many guys, Harry doesn't get the big deal about pomegranate. Neither do I, actually…**

**Probably no one cares about the wand loyalty issue, but I need the future Ollivander scene to go deeper into their fight against Voldie after his resurrection and the girls' near death experiences. It'll explain some of his personality changes, too. Besides, it's not like he's going to get rid of his old wand; it's a wonderful alibi.**

* * *

**Honest Lunar Raven:** How did you know who he would meet? _Get out of my head!_ Coming back from an AK has less to do with being "Master of Death" and more to do with having a blood-based Horcrux in Voldie as well as containing one himself. I never considered the Foxes having elf partners, so I'll have to think about it. And I hope you like wardbreaking as much as you say, because I might get kind of deep into the magical mechanics.

**Selonianth:** The reason that I won't write lemons has less to do with the site rules, and more with the fact that I can't write them without making myself cringe when they're done. I'm sorry to disappoint you. As for your guesses, _Larceny_ was one of the references, yes.

**Silently Watches out.**


	5. Confrontations Past and Present

**I think I can best warn you about the second half of the chapter in two words: angst ahead! Unwanted but necessary, I'm afraid. There's also a fight scene, and some of our trio's history comes to light.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry and Hermione forgive Ron after he ran off for several months _in the middle of a war?_ If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 5  
****Confrontations Past and Present**

The trio saw no students as they walked towards the Great Hall, allowing them to collect their thoughts and center themselves. There would be several people in the room that they had not seen since the second defeat of Voldemort, some whose deaths they had mourned, and even some who they would like nothing more than to slowly and messily dispose of. Not only would they have their own memories haunting them, but many would question how this most unlikely of relationships had developed without the nigh-omniscient Hogwarts rumor mill hearing about it; they would not, under any circumstances, deny they were happy together, especially not for this crowd of children.

"So, how are we going to do this?" Hermione asked when they were before the large doors. "Walk in and ignore any questions, make a scene, take out the junior Death Eaters?"

"Or we could tango our way inside," suggested Luna, "though I don't know that Harry's skilled enough with that routine to dance with both of us."

Harry fondly rolled his eyes at the many ways the two girls tried his patience. "To repeat Hermione, we're magically weaker than we were in our old timeline. Let's _try_ to be discreet, please."

Luna huffed. "Fine, but if any of my _Housemates_ decide to start shit with me, I'm going to finish it. I'm not that little girl who was afraid of escalation anymore." He and Hermione were surprised at her language, not her vehemence; Luna had not had a good experience at Hogwarts last time. When McGonagall told first years that their _'houses would be their families'_, she neglected to inform them that these 'families' acted more like packs of wild animals than humans, turning at a moment's notice on anyone who was different or 'weak'.

"Shall we?" he asked, and confidently opened the door.

* * *

The Great Hall was extremely loud, echoing with the noise of the school's 300 or so students and worsened by the voices of the hundred additional students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The trio moved over to the end of the Gryffindor table closest to the door in order to stay out of the various conversations of their classmates; it had been ten years since this time for them, and there was no way for them to respond to the inevitable questions in-character enough to stay out of suspicion.

_At least, __**I**__ won't be able to be unsuspicious_, Harry thought, _though Hermione might be able to do it. Practically no one knows anything about Luna, so she won't have to worry about it at all. Oh well, it's not like they will do much of anything even when I do break character._

It was Seamus who first noticed the three of them sitting down, surprisingly. "Harry, I'm glad to see you away from Pomfrey. Do you think you could tell us what happened in the maze? No one seems to know."

"Seamus Finnigan, how dare you ask that!" Hermione scolded, "Harry spent the night in the Hospital Wing, and Cedric is dead; would waiting for a single day to go by before you ask such questions be too much for you?"

"Merlin, sorry Hermione, no need to yell at me. I figured Harry was made of strong enough stuff to be able to just tell us about it."

Harry laid his hand on hers to calm her down. "Seamus, it doesn't matter what I'm made of, you don't ask those kinds of questions. Besides, I expect the Headmaster will tell everyone about it eventually."

"We deserve to know what happened," Seamus said, looking at him angrily, "but if you're going to be a coward about it, fine. A true Gryffindor would tell his mates stuff."

_A member of the House dedicated to courage trying to squeeze out information by calling another a coward, how obvious. Was I really this predictable when I was that age?_

"Anyone can say they're brave; I prefer to let my actions prove my character for me. Besides, you don't _'deserve to know'_ anything, so why should I tell you a Merlin-damned thing?"

Even though he knew he was beaten, Seamus still wouldn't let the matter drop. "You think you're so special, don't you? The Boy-Who-Lived, the Triwizard Champion, you think you're better than all the rest of us! Well guess what, Potter, you're not. If it weren't for the teachers giving you whatever you want, everyone would know what a phony you are!"

Harry just looked at him. "And what makes you think the teachers do anything for me that they don't for everyone else? If you think about it, this year I actually got _less_ assistance than any of the other competitors. As for being a 'phony' like you said, if it would bolster you ego, you can try to repeat something I did."

"Like what?"

"Hmm. Well, it'll have to be something easy, so no defeating a Dark Lord, and the Triwiz is over, so you can't do that. How about you kill a basilisk?" He grinned nastily as Seamus's face paled. "After all, I did that with only a bird and a sword at twelve. Surely a fourteen-year-old with a wand should find that rather simple. No? Then I suggest you look at yourself _real_ closely before you decide to call _me_ a coward." He turned away from Seamus back to his meal; he had made his point.

"Now Harry, what have we told you about getting into battles of wit with unarmed opponents?" Luna lightly chided, "He is just jealous that you're in the middle of everything that seems to happen around here; there is no need to rub his nose in his inadequacies. Now say you're sorry."

"I'm sorry that I brought up your inadequacies for everyone at the table to hear, Seamus," he complied, "I should have waited until it was just the two of us before I pointed out how much of a hypocritical sack of gob-shite you are."

Harry knew that Seamus did not deserve as much of their mocking as he was getting, but he had been one of the first members of the DA to give their allegiance to Voldemort; in fact, he had become one of the main trainers for Death Eater recruits. From that perspective, he was actually getting off rather lightly.

Seamus sputtered for a moment even as several of the nearby Gryffindors laughed. Normally he was the put-down king, so when did Harry get so sharp-tongued? "And what the hell is _she_ doing here? She's a 'Claw, and she needs to get back to her table."

Hermione took the opportunity that he had just left; if they established Luna as someone welcome at the Gryffindor table now, it would be easier to make her a common fixture later. "You know I've read _Hogwarts, A History_ numerous times, and it only says that a student cannot eat at a table other than their own House's during the Welcoming Feast. Other than that, we can sit wherever we want."

"Well there you go, Seamus; if Hermione says it's okay, then it's okay," Dean smoothly interjected before moving his attention to Luna. "Welcome to the Gryffindor table, I'm Dean Thomas."

"Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas," Luna replied. "I must say, I admire what you've done with your color matching, that will certainly act as an effective Wrackspurt repellent." Harry could barely hold his snort in, and Hermione's shoulders were shaking enough that he knew she was having equal difficulty. It had been a while since Luna had used one of her creatures as a conversation starter, but the look on people's faces when she did so was priceless.

Ron finally diverted his attention from the food in front of his face enough to focus on his friends. "What's Loony doing over here?"

"_Luna_ is here because we want her here," Harry said, pushing his rage deeper. It would do them no good to curse the little bastard here. He was losing the battle when Dumbledore—_great, someone __**else**__ to piss me off_—stood up and began speaking.

"The end of another year. There is much that I would like to say to you all tonight…"

Harry tuned the old goat out. He had already heard Cedric's eulogy once, and the attention of the school on the Headmaster would give him time to get his head together, move away from the memories of the war that he would not let happen again.

"_Welcome, everyone," Harry said to the Order, assembled once more at 12 Grimmauld Place, "I'm glad you could all make it tonight. In our last battle, we successfully routed the Death Eaters that attacked the Ministry, but we _cannot_ allow ourselves to become complacent. We all recall the atrocities Voldemort committed the last time he gained power, and we _will not_ allow them to occur again if we can—" He paused, the connection he had to the wards of his house informing him that several people had just entered the building. He flicked his eyes over the Order, performing an unnecessary headcount. Only Ron and his pregnant fiancee Lavender were absent, and there were far more individuals in the townhouse than there should be. They had kept the Fidelius Charm from the Second War up, first to hide him from his fans and then to facilitate the reformation of the Order. Perhaps Ron had scrounged up a large number of recruits? The way the number of Death Eaters was multiplying, he wasn't going to turn down any wizards or witches willing to help._

_His train of thoughts was derailed as the door to the kitchen exploded, forcing him to overturn the heavy oak table, deflecting the sharp wooden shards. He looked over it, only to immediately withdraw to dodge a curse flying at him. _On second thought, I **will** turn down any wizard or witch who is also wearing a **Death Eater's mask!**

"_Attack!" he shouted out to the members before he entered the fray. _"Reducto!"_ A bright red bolt flew out of his wand, turning the head of one Death Eater to mush. They had broken into and invaded his home; there was no way that he would treat them with kid gloves. Other Light fighters also began throwing out spells. He could see Hermione taking careful aim and firing what he supposed were obscure, nearly forgotten hexes, while Luna was on the other side of the table, sending spells that ranged from Color-Changing Charms to Bone-Shattering Curses, mixed together in random order. He knew from first-hand experience how devastating her method was, and how difficult to defend against._

_The kitchen was simultaneously an excellent and terrible position to defend from. There was only one entrance, acting as a bottleneck for attackers, but the room was rapidly filling up with debris and bodies. It also meant that there could be no retreat, even for the growing numbers of injured Order members in need of medical assistance. Knowing that the situation was desperate, he shouted out to his fighters. "Push them back! If we can force them farther into the hallway, it will be easier to defeat them!"_

_Luna was the first to react, jumping over the table directly into the path of an Organ-Rotting Curse._

"_Luna!" he screamed as the sickly yellow light connected with her body, throwing her back into the table. A red haze covered his field of vision even as the Elder Wand vibrated in his hand. His rage overtaking his reason, he fell back on the most damaging curse he knew. _"Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!"_ The enemies started dropping like flies as he advanced from his position. _"Crucio!_ 'Mione, _crucio_, help Luna! _Crucio!"

_Hermione ran over to their lover, Healer training taking over as she began making passes with her wand over the blonde's unmoving form. He knew he would only be a hinderance here, so he instead devoted his attention to the now-satisfying task of eliminating any opponents stupid enough to come where he could see them. After another ten or fifteen enemies were incapacitated so the other Order members could contain them, he found the leader of this force; even with the mask, he could see the bright red hair of the worm who had given the Secret to Voldemort's forces._

"_Ron, you bloody traitor!" They began trading spells at a furious pace, speaking only when they weren't dodging. "Why? Why would you do this, we're your friends, and you sided with bloody Voldemort!"_

"_Friends," he scoffed, "you're no friend of mine! I followed you all through Hogwarts, fighting the Dark, and what does it get me, huh? You take the woman I wanted, you don't give me any gold, and still you hog all the fame! You get everything you want handed to you on a silver platter, but you won't share any of it with your _best mate!_"_

"_Hermione was never yours! She made her own decision, and the fact that you used love potions on us is what ruined any chance of her ever loving you!"_

"_She _was_ mine, ever since our fourth year! If you hadn't gotten your crazy blonde bitch to flush out the potions, you'd be content with Ginny and I'd have Herms! But no, you can't let anyone have anything they want, it's always about you, _you, **you!**_"_

_Harry just barely managed to evade Ron's next curse, and the red-head pressed his advantage. "But the Dark Lord recognizes what I can do! Once I kill you and hand your head over, I'll have money, I'll have power, I'll have all the women I want! Maybe I'll even take the Mudblood right here so she can see your body as I put her in her rightful place!"_

"_Over my dead body!" came Hermione's shout, and she flung a blue curse towards their former friend. Time seemed to slow for Harry as he watched Ron respond with a spell of Chudley Cannon orange. The spells collided before returning towards their casters, no longer blue or orange, but a fluorescent pink, completely at odds with the danger he somehow knew it possessed. Ron dodged the spell, but Hermione, apparently confused over how that transformation had occurred, was a split-second too slow. It hit her in the forehead, and she dropped like a stone. Just as with Luna before her, she did not rise._

"_Well," Ron said, looking at her with dismissive eyes, "I guess I can't break her like I wanted to."_

_Hate. That was all Harry could feel at the moment. Hermione and Luna were the two most important people in his life, each holding a different but equal half of his heart. Now they were hurt, possibly dead, and Ron cared for nothing but slaking his violent lust? Eyes that burned with green fire focused on the traitor. Only one spell would display his utter contempt, loathing, _disgust_ with the _**filth**_ in front of him._

"_You bastard! _Avada Kedavra!"_ It was the first time he had ever used the Killing Curse on a living thing. Later that night, he vowed it would also be his last._

_Ron's eyes widened at the green jet of light flying towards him, and _just_ managed to activate a Portkey before it connected._

_Healers arrived ten minutes later to aid those who still had a chance of living. He should have felt guilty about his inattention to his allies, but right then, he couldn't care less about anyone in the house other than the two women he had promised to spend the rest of his life with. An hour and a half after they began treating her, one informed him that Luna, the most carefree and somehow the purest of the three of them, would never be able to show her wonderful inner light to her children. She would never bear one. As for Hermione, the only advice he received was to make his peace with her; unless a miracle happened, she would never wake again._

_Harry and Luna neither slept nor ate for three days, too preoccupied with their tears to bother._

"Harry?" He jerked his attention back to the outside world, back to Hermione. "Everyone else went outside to watch the foreign students leave. Are you okay?"

He grabbed her hand, then did the same to Luna. "We're alive, we're healthy, we're _whole_. As long as we don't repeat the same mistakes we made before, we'll hopefully stay that way. Right now, my loves," he smiled at the girls, who quickly smiled back at him in reassurance, "I can't be anything but perfect."

* * *

**I've always wondered why Luna was so accepting of her Housemates' bullying, and the top three reasons that make sense to me are that 1) she was so lonely that she would take any response to her just to have some attention, 2) she was far more mature than her age suggests and realized that their attitudes were ultimately of no importance to her, or 3) she was one girl ostracized by the rest of her House and was afraid of the real risk of a confrontation developing into physical violence. In this story, I'm going with number 3. I'm curious about your views on the subject.**

**Alright, I'm going to be honest with all of you for bit. Even though what is depicted in these scenes from the end of fourth year is important, I'm very, _very_ tired of writing about it. The action doesn't really even start until the summer; moving Cedric's memorial speech up to lunch and the foreign students' departure to that afternoon allows me to cut out a day that would have had basically nothing happening.**

**The words of Dumbledore's speech come directly from chapter 37 of my copy of _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_, first American edition.**

**Paladeus required an evil Ron, you all get an evil Ron. I know there are a ton clichés in the flashback, but it's a cliché because it _works_.**

**Yes, the last bit was sappy, but I really didn't want to end the chapter with his memories of nearly losing the loves of his life. I had to keep telling myself _'Light-hearted, buddy, keep it light-hearted'._ Needless to say, I don't think I quite succeeded.**

* * *

**Honest Lunar Raven:** Lilith is a strange character, not even I know what she's all about. Yes, Luna is now the proud owner of a holly-phoenix-feather wand, but she already has one and Harry still needs it. In DH, we see that someone can use any wand, they just won't necessarily get a good reaction. If you stay in my head much longer, I'm gonna start charging you rent. Yeah, there's a reason that when my muse says "Do this!", I just say "yes, ma'am". Besides, she's pretty cute.

**Paladeus:** I'm wondering if your review only stopped because you maxed out your number of characters : ) All fae can enter or exit her realm as they want, so she gets a lot of visitors. There were several timelines where Voldie worried about the fae, but after two versions started fortifying themselves against them, the fae… took care of the rest of the problem. By "surround himself in iron", I mostly meant his base, but he could have short bits of iron wire woven in his robes, as well. You sure you don't want him wearing a tinfoil hat?

I'm very much going with the idea of the fae as tricksters, and as for Lilith and all fae owing them? They can construe the fact that they brought the trio into a new timeline as equivalent to saving their race because, like you realized, those were the conditions of their deal.

Lilith acted as she did at the end because, like all fae, it's not wise to insult her. Luna, by trying to take over the North Pole, indirectly insulted Santa, but he's an easy-going sort and only left rotten eggs for her. Lilith, not so much. Speaking of Luna, she's just being paranoid, for the most part, however understandable it is. Lilith wants Voldie out of the picture to protect her people, and if she never sees the three again, so much the better. The "should thank you", for the fae, is close enough to thanking them, because it still implies that there is an imbalance. Lilith does still have some cards; she doesn't _want_ to, but she could move many of her children from this reality to another, something she couldn't in the old reality due to lack of power. The whole "who has the power" issue isn't a plot point at the moment, but we'll see what the muse thinks as the story progresses.

Harry has a lot of hate built up (many from his background would), and you've seen Luna's real view of her Housemates, not just what she said in canon. They don't know why Hermione can't cast the AK; it just doesn't work for her, and you can bet that that irritates her to no end.

**Silently Watches out.**


	6. The Plot Sickens

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry ever get treatment for the starvation and physical abuse he suffered at the Dursleys' hands? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 6  
****The Plot Sickens**

Hermione and Luna eventually managed to convince Harry to see the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students off, and they walked through the main doors in time to spot the dark ship in the Black Lake slip beneath the surface. They hustled over to the crowd, hoping to at least wave goodbye to Fleur. She may have only interacted with them a few times now, but they had become close to her after she and Bill splintered off from the Weasley family following the Great Potion Disaster. As both of his lovers were somewhat affected by her Allure, he had spent the most time with her when the two 'couples' had visited. Their friendly conversations started to include him looking to her for advice, and soon she became the older sister that he had always wanted growing up; if he could have turned to her when he was still a student, he wouldn't have ever wasted his time with Ginny.

The powder-blue carriages appeared ready to depart, winged horses in their harnesses and luggage stored inside, but there were still students flitting across the grounds, spending a few moments talking to one group of students before hurrying to another. He didn't remember any of this happening last time, and a look to the girls confirmed his fears. Something was very wrong.

"'Arry Potter!" shouted a high-pitched voice. He turned around in time to see a small, silvery-blonde ball of energy before it flew into his chest, knocking him to the ground.

_What is it today with being pounced on_, he thought as he looked up at the eight-year-old Veela. Gabrielle Delacour, Fleur's little sister, darling of her family, and from the panicked voices of the other French students, pint-sized trouble-maker. She showed no hurry to get off of him, instead babbling away in French and making wide sweeping gestures, occasionally taking a short break to poke him. "Er, Mione, can you tell me what she's saying?"

When there was no response, he glanced her way and scowled. She was right there, trying—and failing utterly—to hide her laughter behind her hand. She caught ahold of herself and said, "Well, Harry, she seems to think that only an absolutely _horrible_ person wouldn't be here to tell her goodbye, so she had to run around and look for you because only something _dreadful_ could have kept her hero from—" She snorted again, then made a quick comment to Gabrielle before she continued, "—from coming over so you could meet your future in-laws."

"My future _what!"_

Luna by now had cracked up as well and stood bent over at the waist, her head somewhere below her knees and her rear bobbing around as she nearly convulsed in giggles.

"Your future in-laws, Harry, weren't you listening? You saved her from the lake, and since she is her daddy's little princess and you're her knight in shining armor, you have to—" Another snort or two came from Hermione, even as she hid her face in her hair to withstand the temptation of further laughter, "—have to follow the fairy tales and take her home to your French castle and live happily ever after!" The battle lost, she fell to the ground, face flushed and gasping for air.

Harry stared at his loves in shock, dismay, and not a little betrayal. They were supposed to stand by him through thick and thin, and the first disaster they encounter in this timeline, the two of them were laughing at his misfortune. _Laughing!_ He looked at Gabrielle from the corner of his eye and frowned even more; she had joined the two fair-weather friends in their mirth, not knowing enough English to realize she was the source of it.

"Oh, she is just too adorable," squealed Luna. "Can we keep her?"

"She's not a pet, little moon. We need to get her back to her family," he said.

"Then can I have a Snorkack?"

Harry did, in fact, withhold his sigh, though it was a close thing. "Yes, Luna, if you and Xeno find a Snorkack, you can keep it."

"And can I have a pony?" Hermione asked with wide eyes. She only held the expression for a moment before she collapsed back into laughter, which caused Luna to lose her tenuous grip on seriousness.

He nudged Gabrielle from his chest and stood, then he reached out and grasped her hand. "Come on, we'll leave the giggle monsters on their own. We need to get you back to Fleur."

The little girl showed no comprehension until her sister's name was mentioned. Tightening her grip on him, she yanked him through the crowd to the other side of the carriage where Fleur was standing alongside her mother. Even able to withstand the draw of their sensuous aura, Harry felt the powerful subconscious compulsion sliding along the barriers of his hard-earned Occlumency.

He cleared his throat to gain the two women's attention. "Fleur, Madame Delacour, I believe I have something that belongs to you."

"Gabrielle!" her mother called, before she pulled the child from his grip and began scolding her.

"Eet seems I now owe you twice, Monsieur Potter," Fleur said, "for zis ees ze second time you 'ave found my seester and brought 'er back to me."

He blushed. "It wasn't a big deal. She wanted to say goodbye, that's all."

"Non, eet ees not all. We were searching for 'er seence zis morning, and 'ad not found 'er. Eef you 'ad not brought 'er 'ere, I don't know what we would 'ave done."

"I'm sure you would have found her," he replied, desperately thinking for another subject. Profuse thanks always made him feel awkward. "What do you plan to do now that you've graduated?"

"I 'ave been offered a poseetion wiz ze goblins of Gringotts. 'Opefully, eet will geeve me time to eemprove my Engleesh."

"Your accent's better now than it was at the beginning of the year," he said, "so I'm sure it won't take much for you to speak like a native.

"You said you're going to work for Gringotts, is that as a ward-master or a curse-breaker?" For all the expense of Gringotts' warding services, few wizards realized that goblins were incapable of creating them. Their magic made them natural weapon and armor smiths, and they had adapted numerous dwarven techniques for enchanting, but wards were a human invention. Every time Gringotts wards were commissioned, the individuals doing the actual casting were humans employed by the bank. The same tactic was used with their curse-breakers, who were trained to tear down wards and curses from ruins and tombs to get to the treasure hidden within.

"I will be training as a ward-master, zough I would like to become a curse-breaker. I theenk I do not 'ave ze skill to do so. I was een last place een ze Tournament."

Harry shook his head. "Fleur, the Tournament was rigged from the beginning. In a straight duel, Krum could wipe all of us out with raw power, and you and Cedric had the most talent."

"And still, you won."

"I had a lot of people making it easy for me," he countered with a grimace, "so many that a first year could probably have been the Champion if they wanted it. I'm nowhere near as good as the three of you are, not yet."

Fleur smiled at him, "Not yet, but soon. I was not as powerful or as skilled as you when I was fourteen. I believe ze ozzers were not eizzer. _Non_, a year or two from now, and no one will 'ave any doubts zat you deserved to win." A series of chimes kept her from saying more. "Eet ees time for me to leave you, but I will soon be een England again. Until zen, 'Arry Potter, _au revoir_." She took his head in her hands and kissed first one cheek, then the other before she swiftly walked into the carriage.

Harry struggled to dispel his blush when the two glares slamming into his back instantly removed it. _So this is what people mean by 'the kiss of death'._

* * *

It took some fast talking—and a promise of ice cream for Luna—for Harry to be removed from his girlfriends' shit lists. He trudged his way back to the Hospital Wing after they were satisfied, intent on speaking to Pomfrey. He _had_ promised to return if he was in pain or fatigued, and being up these past few hours had worn his energy back down to nothing. More than that, though, was a line of questioning Hermione had pushed him onto with a simple comment.

"_Surely Madam Pomfrey could find some Pepper-Up to help you stay awake. Actually, while you're there, ask for some nutritional potions; I'm worried that the Dursleys will try to starve you again this summer."_

Yes, he was sure that the nurse could get him some potions to help him put on weight, but why had she never given him one before? He hadn't been there all that often, but she performed numerous scans on him every time he had to stay overnight; there was no way that she had missed the obvious signs of malnutrition. Yet somehow, in the six years he had been in her care, she had never once mentioned anything she could do to help him. All told, this gave him serious doubts on her trustworthiness.

Stopping outside the Hospital Wing, he tried to prepare himself mentally for the meeting ahead. In the previous timeline, almost everyone involved in the disaster that was his 'childhood' had already died by the time he figured everything out, Pomfrey included. Now that he was about to confront one of them, he realized how much easier he had it before.

He straightened his shoulders and walked through the doorway. "Madam Pomfrey, are you in here?"

"In here, Mr. Potter," came the mediwitch's voice. He followed it into her office and took a moment to examine the decor.

Least surprisingly were the books, filling a bookshelf on the left side of the room. The right side had a shelf covered with vials, and Harry could see that each one was labeled in a small, careful script. She had no true desk, just a short table that was flush with the far wall of the small room. In front of the table was a wheeled stool, and perched on top was Pomfrey, diligently writing on several pages of parchment. _Paperwork, the unstoppable nightmare._

"I must say, I wasn't expecting you to come back so soon. I thought you would push yourself until you collapsed and would have to be carried here."

He flushed, that was exactly what he would have done, and did do, in the old timeline more times than he could count. "When Hermione saw how tired I was, she insisted that I come to you. I was wondering if I could get a dose of Pepper-Up to last me until tonight."

"I can't do that, Mr. Potter," she said. She swiveled her stool around to fully face him. "If you were only fatigued, I would not have a problem giving you something to keep you awake, but your magic is already fully occupied countering the Cruciatus. The best thing you could do for yourself if you're feeling tired is to take a short rest."

"You really care for your patients, don't you?" He struck when she smiled in response, "But I must say, if you care so much, how is it that you haven't done anything to fix what my so-called 'family' has done to me over the years?"

Pomfrey bent her head down, looking at the hands she was twisting in her lap. "I wish I could have helped you somehow. Every time you came in here, I couldn't help thinking that it was partly my fault you were there. Maybe if I had treated you, you wouldn't have nearly died so many times…"

"If you wanted to help me so much, _why didn't you?"_

"Because _Dumbledore_," she spat, "used the Hippocratic Oaths and the vows I made to become Hogwarts's Healer against me. He arranged it so that I could never help you as much as I wanted."

Harry blinked in confusion. "What do you mean, Hippocratic Oaths? And what other vows?" He had heard of the Hippocratic _Oath_ from the Muggle world, but he didn't know that Wizarding Britain had a similar practice. Hermione had never told him about them, either, but she had only completed three of the five years of training needed to become a Healer.

"The Hippocratic Oaths are five magical oaths that Healers swear to follow before they graduate from their training and take on their own patients. Breaking a single one would have taken my magic from me, and I fear what would happen to you, to all of the students, if I was forced to leave."

"But how could Dumbledore trap you in your Oaths?" he asked.

"The Hippocratic Oaths are highly specific. This is _meant_ to prevent Healers from being trapped in a situation where any option will force them to violate one, but Dumbledore twisted them so that my job did that itself.

"The first Oath is _'I will perform all treatments within my power as needed, and will never cause my patients harm, through action or inaction, unnecessarily or disproportionate to the benefits they will receive from my treatments. On my magic, I so swear.'_ Its purpose is obvious, preventing any Healer from causing harm to a patient due to personal feelings.

"The second is _'I will inform my patients of their infirmities and the proper treatment for them before administering any remedy. If my patients are minors, I will inform their guardians, unless the guardian in question is the cause of the patient's condition. On my magic, I so swear.'_ Many people are more comfortable if they know what their Healer is going to do and why. Since we must look at patients as people, not just problems to be solved, causing emotional distress can be considered harming them, violating the first Oath.

"The third is _'I will not treat any condition for which I have not been trained, except as a last resort for a patient lying at the foot of the Veil. I will seek out fellow Healers who are knowledgable and experienced in the specific condition my patient suffers from. On my magic, I so swear.'_ Long ago, when Healing was taught through apprenticeships, most deaths were due to young Healers who had no idea how to treat an infirmity they had never encountered. There are a number of diseases or injuries that require attention from specialists.

"The fourth is _'I will respect my patients' privacy and will not release information on them without just cause. On my magic, I so swear.'_ We learn things about patients through the exams we perform that they would never tell another person. Our duty is to bring our patients back to full health, not spread rumors about them. On the other hand, in some cases, such as abuse, we need to be able to involve the DMLE, hence the phrase 'just cause'.

"Finally, the fifth is _'I will not make any vows that violate these Oaths I swear as a Healer. On my magic, I so swear.'_ This Oath has a simple purpose; it keeps Healers from being caught between conflicting vows."

"Okay," Harry said after thinking over each Oath, "all of them make sense on the surface, but you haven't treated me for the starvation I suffered, nor did you call in anyone to take me from my relatives, so how did you avoid violating the Oaths?"

Pomfrey sighed. "I didn't violate them because I had to swear two other vows before I could work here. First, I swore on my magic to inform the Headmaster, as the guardian _in loco parentis_ for all the children attending Hogwarts, whenever a student's course of treatment required long-term action, or when it would interfere with their ability to participate in class. Furthermore, unless the student is at least seventeen years of age, I have to wait for his permission to proceed with the recommended treatment or to release the student's medical information to any individual other than the Headmaster and the student's guardians.

"I tell Dumbledore every year that you need more help than I can give overnight, but while he says he will have words with your guardians, he never authorizes treatment, nor does he allow me to consult with experts from St. Mungo's."

"So you couldn't treat me yourself, but nothing was stopping you from telling me—"

"There was. The Headmaster also made me swear not to approach any underage student, you in this case, about your conditions or treatment options before I had consulted your guardians and gained consent for the treatment. The second Hippocratic Oath kept me from treating you without telling you what I was doing, and my oath to the Headmaster prevented me from telling you, so I couldn't treat you."

Harry could understand the distress and anger the older woman was feeling. He had been manipulated since his parents' deaths to be Dumbledore's weapon, but he had been blind to what was happening behind the scenes until everything was already over. How much worse was it for Poppy Pomfrey, who saw the snare only after she had already been caught?

"But you're talking to me about it now, so how are you avoiding breaking your vows?"

Pomfrey's eyes were an unsettling imitation of Dumbledore's, and her malicious grin would have made Voldemort proud. "I couldn't tell you before, but _you_ approached _me_ this time; it's a loophole in Dumbledore's restrictions. Since you already know, there are now many more options available to us…"

* * *

**_Why_ did I let Fleur talk? I thought I learned my lesson the _first_ time!**

**It's funny that fanon has _so many_ mentions of goblin wards, but we never see a single one in the bank in DH. And you would think that if goblins could put up and break down wards, they would _never_ hire humans like Bill to do it for them.**

**The scene with Poppy arose from a reread of southern-reader's review from chapter 2. Thank you, friend! By the way, the "Hippocratic Oaths" above are _not_ the Hippocratic Oath that medical professionals swear to uphold, though I did base the first, third, and fourth Oaths on portions of it.**

**I don't think I need to explain why Dumbles wants Harry weak and uninformed; most of you already know where I'm going with that. If you don't like this interpretation of Dumbledore… why did you start reading this in the first place? I put it in the summary, after all.**

* * *

**Proud Harmonian:** He has no compunctions against lethal spells, hence the _Reducto_ to the head. If you reread the end of chapter 3, you'll see that the reason for the KC being Unforgivable is that it _destroys the soul_. Harry's reason for disliking it isn't even that, though; it's that his actions reminded him again of how many similarities he and Voldemort share. As for using it again, let's just say that I already have _that_ scene outlined and partially written. Lavender was a "good little housewitch" and joined the DEs when Ron did.

**Honest Lunar Raven:** What can I say, following Dumbles's philosophy is not the best plan under most circumstances. Ron is a traitor so often, IMO, because _so many of us hate his guts!_

**Silently Watches out.**


	7. Last Minute Errands

**Ahhhh… I know the last few chapters have been full of tragedy, angst, and background information. _Finally_, we have one that is devoted almost entirely to humor in one form or another. And if you notice, I finally found that single bar button; certainly took me long enough.**

**Before we begin, I would like to give special thanks to Paladeus. Not only did he conceive the challenge that made this story possible, but he also recommended it in the latest chapter of his story _Death's Pride_. Thank you again!**

**Disclaimer:** Was Harry always in a rush to pack and get to King's Cross on September 1, generally due to a certain ginger family? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and anyone else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 7  
****Last Minute Errands**

Teenage boys are notoriously bad at keeping up with their possessions; it is simply a fact of life. Put five of them together in a dorm for a term or two, and it is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Put five of them together in a dorm for a term or two _with no adult supervision_, and the room does not have to wait to become a disaster; it has already been demolished.

Such was the case with the fourth year Gryffindor boy's room. The floor was covered with clothes they had neglected to put in the hamper for the house-elves to clean; candy wrappers and game pieces, mostly Gobstones and chessmen, were strewn at random throughout; and each boy would need to ask the others for help finding any articles of clothing they were missing. Even the bed and dresser belonging to Harry, who was obsessively neat compared to his roommates, were total wrecks.

Harry, having walked inside just after nine in the morning, stared in mute horror. After he had to live on his own, he had regained some of the cleaning habits he developed at the Dursleys', though not to the extreme Petunia had taken them. What was normal and acceptable for him at fourteen was far worse than he was willing to deal with at twenty-four, even if only in his head. _All I wanted to do was get all my stuff together and have it ready for the elves to take to the train when we leave in a couple of hours, not deal with __**this**__! I don't recall everything that belonged to me at this time, and I have other things I would rather use my time for than looking through this entire dorm for my clothing._ He moved to his trunk and checked inside for his invisibility cloak—he stuffed _that_ into a space-extended pocket—photo album, and Firebolt. _At least my most valuable belongings are where I left them. Now what am I going to do for the rest of my things?_

"Master Harry Potter sir needs Dobby's help?"

He spun about, wand sliding into his hand from his sleeve with a wandless summoning charm, and he shoved the tip in between tennis ball-sized eyes, which crossed to keep the business end of the focus in sight. "Dobby, don't scare me like that," he said, quickly withdrawing his wand. "Now, what did you just say?"

The elf shuffled on his feet, still a little upset about making his master unhappy. "Dobby wanted to know if Master Harry Potter sir would like Dobby to help get all of master's things."

"Yes, that would be wonderful. Thanks, Dobby." Dobby regained his normal spirits with Harry's words and clapped his hands. From under beds, behind a dresser, and even inside Ron's trunk, items flew over to them. Another clap had them neatly arranged and in his luggage, which was now standing on its side and waiting to be whisked down to Hogsmeade station.

"Dobby is being done, Master Harry Potter sir. Dobby be leaving now."

"Hold on," Harry said. He had discussed the house elf situation with Hermione and Luna when they had visited the night before, after he and Pomfrey had finished their own plans, and they had asked him nicely (that is, told him to do it _or else_) to speak with Dobby; he now had a short list of rules that the two beings would have to follow. Speaking of… "How is Winky doing, is she getting better?"

Dobby's frantic nodding made him wonder if he needed to carry around large rolls of tape for when the elf inevitably threw his own head off his shoulders. "Winky is being better, Master Harry Potter sir. Now that she has a family, she not be drinking and be working again. Should Dobby tell Winky Master Harry Potter sir be asking?"

"You can if you want. I have some things we need to talk about, but you can hear them now and tell her later, I suppose. Take a seat."

With great difficulty, Harry pretended that he couldn't hear the elf's mutters of how he was such a _'great and good master'_. Once the elf was seated upon the corner of his trunk, he took a knee on the floor, allowing them to be at eye level. "I talked with Hermione and Luna about having you and Winky as my elves like I said, and they don't see a problem with either of you working for me as long as we set down some ground rules. You have to follow them if you want to stay our elves, do you understand?" A wary nod was his only answer.

"You and Winky may be bonded to me, but Hermione and I were raised in the Muggle world, which has laws against enslaving people. So, we are going to treat you two as employed domestic servants, which means uniforms and a salary. You and Winky can choose what outfits you want; the only requirement is that they have to complement each other and you need the Potter coat-of-arms on it. We will pay," Harry did a quick calculation, "35 galleons a month and give you every Saturday off—"

"_No!"_ Dobby wailed. "Dobby being happy to be Harry Potter sir's elf, Dobby not be needing so much!"

"Well I have to pay you _something_, or Hermione is going to have my hide. What would you be willing to take?"

Dobby thought for a moment. "If Dobby must take money, Dobby wants one knut a year and no days off."

He failed to contain his sigh, why couldn't Hermione do this herself? _Oh, right, because Dobby is bonded to me, personally. Even if he changed his allegiance to the Potter family, I'm still the only one in it. '_If Luna and I can't both marry you, we won't get married at all', _she said._ 'It just wouldn't be fair',_ she said. Sometimes, my life utterly sucks._

"Twenty galleons a month with a day off every two weeks."

"One sickle a month and no days off."

"You're going to be stubborn about that, aren't you? Fine, one day a week that you may use however you wish, even if that's working, but in return you have to accept fifteen galleons a month."

"Dobby cans accept that, but Winky being not." A smug grin grew on the elf's face, "Dobby not taking more than Winky."

"Ugh," Harry moaned. _I should tell them they answer to Hermione but can only accept clothes from me, just to make this __**her**__ problem_. "Alright, Dobby, since you're wanting to play dirty. You still get that free day each week, but I will set aside up to twenty galleons every month, ten for each of you, that you and she may spend if you want on whatever catches your fancy. I don't care if you spend all of your allowance or none of it, the next month you will have a full twenty galleons available. This is my final offer; you can take it or I will _order_ you two to receive 35 a month and every Saturday off."

Seeing his point, Dobby finally relented. "Dobby and Winky be taking one free day a week and twenty galleons a month. Does Master Harry Potter sir have more rules?"

"Yes, Dobby, just a couple more. Anything the three of us—Luna, Hermione, and I—say in private cannot be told to anyone without our express permission, even if they say that they need to know to help us. Not McGonagall, not Dumbledore, not even the Fae Queen if she comes to call, understand?"

"Dobby being a good elf," Dobby said indignantly, "Dobby not be telling Master Harry Potter sir's or his missies' secrets."

Harry held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I didn't mean to insult you. It's just that, before we came back, we heard stories of elves who thought they were helping their masters and instead were tricked into betraying them. I wanted to make sure you never found yourself in that situation," he quickly lied. Kreacher had not been tricked into _anything_, but that was a story Dobby didn't need to hear at the moment.

"Dobby understands, Dobby and Winky not be telling secrets ever unless Master or his missies say to."

"Good. This next one is especially for you, Dobby. If you two hear about a threat to any of us, you will _tell us, immediately _and_ clearly._ No hinting around the subject or trying to save my life like you did… two years ago." He barely kept himself from saying 'twelve years', which would have been a very bad slip up. _I should make sure that I don't use the future as my reference point, or I'm going to make things a whole lot more difficult on us._ "We will decide what, if anything, needs to be done to stay out of danger."

Dobby nodded again, so Harry was free to give the rule that he really wanted to deliver. "Last rule, I do not want you to call me _'Master Harry Potter sir'_ all the time. Please, just call me Harry."

"Dobby cans not be doing that, but Dobby be calling Master Harry Master Harry."

"If that's the best you can do, I'll take it." A thought popped into his head, a wicked and devious thought. "Actually, Hermione will probably be giving you a lot of orders, and so she really deserves being called _'Missy Hermy Grangy ma'am'_. Only I can tell you to call her something else, got it?"

Dobby returned to his bobble-head impression, "Dobby cans do, Dobby helps Master Harry with his joke. Does Dobby need to call missy Lunie special, too?"

"No," he said, "just address her how you have been. I'll call on you soon, likely tonight. Don't forget to tell Winky what I told you." A squeal of happiness and a soft pop was his reply. He stood up to leave the room when the flutter of wings reached his ears; turning, he saw a white-feathered Fury glaring at him with yellow eyes from the open window.

"Hey, girl," he said in a fearful voice. "You know I would never forget about _you_, right?"

* * *

Down in the deep dungeons of this domain of discipline, a fairly full-figured, flaxen-haired, feminine felon flew fleet-footedly, following the foul fragrance of that fun-hating, fiendish fellow Filch. She subtly silenced the soft sound of her steps so she could seek out some suitably scintillating secret. There, the portal to possible prizes, promised per the prankster princes to provide pleasure and playful pass-times. Carefully, she cased the corridor; catching the crafty crook could compromise her companion's conspiracy to commit crazy and comic crimes.

After a glance down each end of the hall, then double-checking the ceiling, Luna walked over to the door to the caretaker's office. A quick unlocking charm later, and she was inside. The room was unimpressive, little more than a large closet that someone had stuffed a slightly battered desk and several filing cabinets into. It was to the latter that she made her way.

According to Harry, the twins had said that they found the Marauder's Map in their first year after being caught setting up a Dungbomb. _That_ was by no means surprising to the Ottery St. Catchpole native, but exactly _where_ they found it intrigued her. Based on her memory of the story, she sought and at last found the drawer they had spoken of.

"'_Confiscated and Highly Dangerous'_, are we?" she giggled. "Well, my pretties, you will have a better home than this smelly old cupboard. We shall have _so_ much fun together." She opened the drawer and peeked in, then slammed it closed as she stuffed her fist in her mouth; all her secrecy would be for nought if she revealed her presence with a burst of maniacal laughter. A second look only worsened her situation.

After she had regained her seriousness—_or is it Siriusness, since he is, after all, still alive and supposedly safe in… in… well, in his home, anyway_—she crept up the cabinet until she was sitting on top. Focusing on Filch's one lamp so as to not resume her cackling, she slid the drawer all the way out and untied the burlap sack wrapped around her waist. Someone who didn't know her well would wonder why she had one to begin with, but her lovers understood; though she had never seen any this far north, she knew one could never be too watchful for Blibbering Humdingers. _It may not be Santa's bag, but the space-extension should allow me to hold everything_.

She opened the sack and covered the top of the drawer with it. Now that she was safe from temptation, she drew her ebony wand and pointed it at her new toys. "_Accio_ everything in the drawer that won't promote the Rotfang Conspiracy." Her wand hesitated a moment, then obediently pulled the summoned items into the container. After all her 'confiscated and highly dangerous' treasures were inside, she put her wand back in her pocket with a pat. "Thank you, Eric."

Her skipping gait took her out of Filch's office and into the hallway, then she stopped and walked backwards to the door again. "I knew I forgot something," she muttered, then pulled her wand back out. "_Animadverto me non_," she intoned, casting a notice-me-not spell on the entrance to the room. _How could I be so silly? First rule of thievery: make sure that no one stumbles onto the scene of the crime._

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

_The Hogwarts Express is a marvel_, Harry thought as he gazed at the train, _of the stupidity of the average wizard. A perfect example of wizards taking Muggle objects they have no comprehension of, putting spells on them that make whatever it is about five times more complicated than it needs to be, then choosing to paint it with a color so eye-watering that it leads me to wonder if attaining the title of Pureblood requires color-blindness._ Scarlet generally wasn't a bad color, as long as it was on cloth, wood, or some other non-reflective surface. The metal siding of the Express, however, was not one of those, and the light bouncing off the non-painted sections onto the red was enough to make him want nothing more than the chance to dump the train in the middle of the ocean.

"Don't worry, mate," Ron said as he clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder. The raven-haired veteren-in-a-wet-behind-the-ears-boy's-body barely managed to check his initial impulse, which would have been to use the 'Voldemort Special' and _Crucio_ the ginger into insensibility before feeding him to a conjured anaconda. "It's just a couple of months, and I'm sure that Mum will be demanding Dumbledore to let you come over."

Harry pasted on his face a smile so obviously forced that even Crabbe and Goyle would have known he was lying. "Sure, that would be _great_." Ron grinned back and jogged into one of the coaches.

_Either I'm a better liar now than I was as a teen, or Ron Weasley is a lot more oblivious than I remember._

He, too, entered the train and searched for the compartment that Hermione said she would claim, working from the first carriage down to ensure that he found it. Most likely, she had also warded the thing to high heaven.

_Of __**course**__ she picked one at the very back_, he thought irritably ten minutes later. _It's not like there weren't more than enough in the first coach. Or the second. __**Or**__ the third._ He knew it wasn't fair to take his annoyance out on Hermione, they had always ridden as far back as they could, but right about now he _really_ wanted to punt some fools off the train while it was rolling along in the middle of nowhere. Every compartment he passed, there were students gawking out the window at him, almost as if they were wondering what terrible thing would happen to him next. _And soon, they'll all believe the Daily Prophet and think that I'm a mentally unstable, attention seeking, murderous psychopath. We're saving their arses for them, why again?_

He looked through yet another window and smiled when he saw Hermione sitting there, reading a book. _That's right, we're not saving them. We're saving __**us**__, our future; the sheep of the Wizarding world are just benefiting from it. And some of them are going to be paupers by the end, while we can be on a nice tropical island, living a life of luxury and laziness._

Oh yeah, and the weasel was inside, too.

Opening the door caught his brunette girlfriend's attention. "Hey, I was wondering when you'd get here. Did you see Luna while you were walking around?"

"No, she sent me a note this morning saying that she had something she wanted to do, and that she was going to be," he pulled the short letter in question out of his pocket, _"'just the teensiest, tiniest bit late, so you two get together and start with the plotting for world domination. Don't do anything I wouldn't do in front of my grandpappy!'_ She signed it with three L's."

He suspected the last bit would go completely over Ron's head, and he wasn't disappointed. They each had a set of writing conventions they developed during the last war in case they had to leave public messages, and this memo had two. That particular signature was a sign that she was sure her job would be either an enormous waste of time or beneficial in the extreme. Mentions of her grandfather, who she had died before she was born, meant that she was going to be in some light risk. Thankfully, she hadn't used her father or mother; the former indicated the situation was high-risk with the possibility of combat, while the latter was a call for immediate backup and was only for situations where they honestly could not do without whatever she was after.

"I hope she doesn't get in trouble for it," Hermione fretted, and Harry couldn't resist sitting beside her and pulling her into his arms. "What if she gets caught by Filch, or _Snape!"_

"Bloody son of a bitch," Ron muttered.

The two lovebirds ignored the boy. "She's good enough to avoid that, Mione. I'm sure she'll come by in a few minutes, perfectly fine." The door opened, and Harry turned with a smile on his face, which died immediately when he saw it was not his favorite blonde. In fact, it was his _least_ favorite.

"What do you want this time, Malfoy?"

* * *

**Ah, the cliché of Harry's house elf rules. If I calculated it right, 35 galleons should be equivalent to a salary for working six eight-hour days per week at minimum wage (at least, the minimum wage in America currently), if not a touch higher. To Dobby and Winky, this money would be _in addition _to free room and board, so more or less $21,000 a year in disposable income.**

**I know some alliteration pops up in my wonted works, but wow, was writing Luna's words weird. Oh, for crying out loud… Never try to type after watching _V for Vendetta_; it gives you odd ideas that are more trouble to put down than they're worth.**

**We can't have Luna as a main character and just _ignore_ all her conspiracy theories. I wanted to get away from the Siriusness for a little bit, and this was certainly quirky enough.**

**Did any of you like the example of their little code system? Effective when you need to send information through an unsecured channel while at war or are making plans during class time.**

* * *

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** Harry and Fleur became close in the future, but Harry's just trying to rebuild their relationship earlier than last time. Pomfrey has already seen Dumbledore's darker side, do you think that she's going to run her mouth and catch his attention? I'm not going to give any hints on what's happening during the summer; you're just going to have to read and find out.

**jediprankster:** To the best of my recollection, the Thief's Downfall was a liquid they rode through, which seems to me to mean it's a potion or an enchantment rather than a ward. Same thing for the vault doors, I interpret that as an enchantment. Yeah, the goblins think the situation's funny for the same reason.

**cfp33pfc:** The relevant phrase in the first Oath is "in my power". Since Pomfrey can't violate the vows she made to Dumbledore without losing her magic, the Oath gives her leeway here. It's main purpose is to prevent a Healer from intentionally and maliciously withholding treatment.

**Joe Lawyer:** I've also read stories where he files for emancipation, but considering that doing so would require getting Ministry approval (at least, I'm pretty sure it would), he's not going to deal with that can of worms yet. The future brought the magical world to near extinction and had the surviving population worshiping Voldie, so no, they don't care about keeping the timeline the same; in fact, they're going to go out of their way to screw with it.

**Silently Watches out.**


	8. Comparing Notes

**Okay, folks and friends, I have good news and bad news. The bad news (for you) is that I started the first year of medical school on Monday, so my free time, a.k.a. my writing time, is shortly going to shrink down to a few hours on weekends and maybe—_maybe_—getting a single chapter out every week or two. The _good_ news is that over my vacation last week, I managed to get a lot written for each of my stories, and all that's left is putting everything together and polishing it. This means you'll have a few weeks of our regular schedule before the several-week-long delays hit.**

**Disclaimer:** Did we see Harry and co. use their entirely too long train ride to get some of their summer assignments out of the way so they could actually enjoy their time off? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and anyone else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 8  
****Comparing Notes**

_The two lovebirds ignored the boy. "She's good enough to avoid that, Mione. I'm sure she'll come by in a few minutes, perfectly fine." The door opened, and Harry turned with a smile on his face, which died immediately when he saw it was not his favorite blonde. In fact, it was his **least** favorite._

"_What do you want this time, Malfoy?"_

* * *

"I came to see how Dumbledore's favorite boy was handling what happened," Draco sneered. All those days spent in front of his bathroom mirror at home were certainly worth it. "Trying not to think about it, Scarhead? Pretending it hasn't happened?"

"Think about what, how small you look next to Crabbe and Goyle? That is certainly hard to ignore." The bodyguards looked stupidly at Potter when they heard their names, and he continued, "Poor children, still using all the muscles except the one that really matters. Then again, your boss doesn't use _his_, either, so I guess you can be excused."

The blond prince of Slytherin didn't understand the different track this confrontation was taking compared to normal. He was supposed to say something witty; Potty, the Weasel, and the Mudblood would shout and weakly try to threaten him; and he would leave as the winner. The stupid half-blood shouldn't be talking his way out; he was a _Gryffindor_, after all!

"You've picked the wrong side!" he yelled, trying to catch Harry's attention with volume since his words weren't having the right effect. "I warned you, you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember?" What kind of fool would _want_ to be in the company of Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods, anyway? "When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like this!"

"You know, I don't think you said that," Potter said quietly, tapping his chin.

Ha, the dumb half-blood was a scaredy-cat in front of his pure greatness! _Of course, __**I**__ wouldn't be like him; I'd turn anyone who tried to threaten me into a toad. Or maybe __**they**__ could be ferrets, and I'd sic snakes on them!_ He watched his glorious dream a moment longer, ignoring that he didn't know how to do either of those spells. Purebloods didn't have to _learn_ magic, they ordered and magic obeyed.

"In fact," the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Even-Die continued; it was like he wasn't even paying attention to him! "I think what you actually told me was that you could help me find the 'right sort', or something to that effect. I didn't care then, and I don't now."

"Why not!" he whined. No, Purebloods didn't whine; he must have bellowed, like Father did when one of his little workers was stupid again. Yeah, he bellowed like a _real_ man.

"Draco, Draco, Draco. Drake—you don't mind me calling you Drake, right?—I killed you once already, and you weren't even worth my time. It was an afterthought, really, while I was working your dad over. I mean, you tried to transfigure me into a ferret and hit Parkinson instead. So, no, I don't care, because you weren't a threat then, and you're definitely not one now."

Draco stared at Potter. Weasley stared at Potter. The Mudblood glared at Potter. The two lumps he had following him around stared hungrily at their own feet.

"You weren't supposed to hear that." Potter's wand came out of his sleeve and he pointed it at the three boys. Potter was mad, totally barking, and he was going to kill him! _"Obliviate."_

…Yeah, he bellowed like a _real_ man.

"Anyway, Malfoy, I'm sure you have other things to do. Consider your normal end of year threat delivered, and we can go our separate ways." Potter didn't have the guts to even _listen_ to his awesome threats. It almost made the late night he had a waste of time. Laughing at Potter shaking in his cheap shoes, Draco Malfoy left to his own compartment, inflated with his magnificent greatness.

* * *

"Harry, mate, what was that?"

"_Obliviate."_ Ron went slack-jawed as Hermione lowered her wand. "Really, Harry?"

"Oops?" he said weakly. He hadn't meant for that to come out, but it had been _Draco Malfoy_. The boy, for not even as an adult had he ever been a man, would talk and talk and talk, but when the time came for him to act, he generally froze. The only reason he held so much influence at Hogwarts was his name and Snape holding his hand.

"Is that all you have to say? _Oops?_ I swear, love, you can normally keep a secret, but that was a Hagrid-worthy slip up."

Ron jerked his head in Hermione's direction. "What are you calling him 'love' for?!"

Harry pointed his wand at the red-head. "_Obliviate._ I would say that you're being a little dramatic, but I agree that I shouldn't have said it. It's just, it's _Malfoy_, for Merlin's sake."

"You are almost twenty-four years old, you need to move past this schoolboy grudge you have against him. You're acting as bad as Sirius and Snape!"

"He's only fourteen, Herms!" Ron was hit again by her Memory Charm.

"That's crossing the line, Mione. I haven't tried to feed him to a werewolf or have him Kissed by a Dementor, I just don't like him. You dislike Edgecomb more than I do Malfoy, and yet I don't get on _your_ case about it."

"She sold us out to Umbridge, got a job at the Ministry when Voldemort first took over, and then planned to seduce and murder you! I'm allowed to dislike her!"

"Yes, you are; I'm not denying that. What I _am_ saying is that you two can't even be in the same room without wands being drawn, so it's a bit hypocritical for you to get onto me for disliking Malfoy."

Ron looked between the two of them. "What?"

"_Obliviate_."

"Harry," she tried again, "it's not that you have a distaste for him that I mind, it's that you told him that _we're from the future!_ Wouldn't you agree that's a bad thing? _Obliviate_."

"I do agree, and that's why I memory charmed Malfoy and his goons in the first place. If he doesn't remember, he can't tell Lucius or Voldemort, so really the argument is moot."

"You… memo… huh?"

"_Obliviate_."

"But what are you going to do if you make that mistake in front of someone who _isn't_ incompetent? I doubt you could force yourself to memory charm Sirius, and Moody, Kingsley, and Tonks will all be faster than you."

"You know, all you had to say was that I need to be more careful about what I say. The scolding was entirely unnecessary."

"Purple penguins prancing playfully…"

Hermione sighed as he again wiped the ginger's memory. "You're right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have scolded you. It's just that I had this image of Voldemort finding out what happened and taking us far more seriously than he will otherwise. I don't want to lose you, Harry."

He pulled her into his lap and hugged her tight. "You're not going to lose me, Hermione; I love you too much to hurt you like that. I'll be more careful, I promise."

"Hem hem." Holly and vine were instantly aimed at the blonde sporting a Cheshire grin. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."

"Luna," he sighed, "don't _do_ that. We put up with quite a bit, but I draw the line at you imitating Umbridge."

She nodded serenely and cast silencing and avoidance charms on the door before she focused on the compartment's other occupant. "If you were going to have fun with Weasley, you should have waited for me. I wanted to get a few licks in."

Ron was not, by anyone's definition, in a good state. His eyes were glazed over, and his hanging jaw allowed a trail of drool to flow down onto his robes. A quick poke, curtesy of Harry's foot, showed him to be completely dead to the world.

Hermione used the opportunity to stun him for good measure. At her lovers' looks, she exclaimed, "Hey, it's a valid medical practice for someone who has been subjected to multiple memory charms in a short time interval. When he wakes up, he'll be mostly back to normal."

"Mostly?" Harry asked.

"Well, he will have trouble concentrating for long periods of time, emotional volatility, reduced social skills, and an inability to prioritize. Nothing he didn't already have."

"Ah." A wave of Luna's wand had Ron transfigured into a pillow, which then served as an additional cushion for her to sit upon. "So, what have _you two_ been up to this morning?"

Harry spoke first. "I had the discussion with Dobby like you asked, and I negotiated him up—"

"Don't you mean negotiated down?" Hermione asked.

"No, up. His first counteroffer was a knut a year and work every day."

"Well," the blonde interjected, "he _is_ Dobby."

"I negotiated him _up_ to access to ten galleons each per month and a day a week where they can do whatever they want."

The eldest of the three frowned. "That's rather loose. He and Winky could decide they want to spend their day off working and never use the money."

"What would you have me do, then; order them to accept whatever I wanted to pay them and ignore how they felt about it?" She swiftly shook her head, remembering the tongue-lashing she had received the previous day from her girlfriend, one much less entertaining than that they usually shared. "I figure that getting him to agree to that was a victory in itself."

Neither girl had any response to that, so Hermione went next. "I broke into the Chamber of Secrets to take a few basilisk fangs, then I ran back up to the Room of Requirement. We are now the proud owners of a one of a pair of Vanishing Cabinets."

"Excellent!" Luna cheered, then pounced onto her for a deep kiss.

Harry, well used to this situation, simply enjoyed waiting for the girls' snog to end before he put forth his question. "How did you even get into the Chamber, Hermione? You can't speak Parseltongue, at least not unless you've been hiding a few skills from us."

Luna also turned to stare at the brunette. "You could have been using your tongue like Harry all these years, and you held out on me?"

"I haven't been hiding anything, Harry, and no, Luna, you haven't been denied having two Parselmouths eat you out. I didn't even worry about 'opening' the Chamber; I just…"

"Yes?" they both asked.

"I may have, hypothetically, sort of… used an explosive curse on the sinks above the entrance?"

They stared at her, and she blushed to the roots of her bushy mane. No matter how much Salazar Slytherin was denigrated, the fact remained that his secret lair was a thousand-year-old historical site, one that only six people in living memory had ever seen. Even the entrance in the girls' lavatory was extremely valuable. To simply demolish it was more than a little out of character for her.

"I used _Reparo_ when I left. No one will even know anything happened."

"_Would_, Hermione," Luna said. "No one _would_ even know, and you _would have_ repaired it, if you had actually destroyed it. But this is all hypothetical, isn't it?"

Hermione perked up. "Yes, of course. All hypothetical. I would _never_ deface a piece of history like that."

Harry snorted and looked to Luna. "And you?"

She shrugged. "I robbed Filch."

"You WHAT?"

Luna glanced between her lovers before she scooted closer to Harry. She whispered, "I think Mione's going deaf. She can't seem to hear me when I talk."

"I'm not deaf, though there are times when I wish I were. What did you say about robbing Filch?"

"Nothing…"

"Luna, now."

"No. I don't want to, and you can't make me!" She curled up into Harry's chest even more, and he winced, knowing where this was going.

"Luna Lachesis Lovegood, you tell me _right now_ what you did, or so help me, you won't have any pudding for the rest of the summer!"

"No! You can't take away my pudding!" the blonde girl wailed.

"If you act like a child, then Harry and I will treat you like a child."

"Ooh, does this mean I get spankings?" she asked, her mood bouncing back faster that a Puffskien thrown at a rubber wall.

He sighed and interjected, "No, Luna, in fact we _won't_ spank you. How about you just tell us why you robbed Filch so we can avoid all this unpleasantness."

Luna looked between the two and huffed. "Fine, take all the fun out of it. Harry, you told us that the twins took the Marauder's Map from Filch's office. I wondered what else he had confiscated over the years, so I broke in and emptied out everything in the cabinet he labeled highly dangerous." She perked up at Hermione's surprised expression. "Do you want to see?"

He and Hermione looked at each other, then he asked, "Anything we need to see right now?"

She thought for a moment. "I suppose not. Is there something we need to do while we have… _privacy?"_

"Actually, Luna, _I_ have work for us to do, and you don't even have to take off any clothes for it." Hermione ignored the younger girl's grumbling as she pulled out a day planner. "My parents and I are going to be out of the country for the second half of the summer, starting in mid-July, so we need to hit a few targets while we have the time. Luna, are you going to be here, or does Xeno have another expedition planned?"

"We're going to Sweden to look for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks this year, remember? Though we've already looked there, so maybe we should go somewhere else; we have yet to search in Siberia, after all…"

"When are you leaving, Luna?" She asked in an exasperated tone.

"First of August."

Harry rubbed his hands together in an imitation of old-time cinema villains. "Excellent. That means we have three or four weeks to do recon and possibly strip a few manors. Who shall we start with?"

Hermione wrote a note in the planner. "Before we run our first heist, let's take the Slytherin ring. It and the locket are the only two Horcruces that will be relatively unprotected, and we'll have the locket practically handed to us when Harry returns to… to… I can't remember where it is!"

"I noticed that earlier," Luna said. "It looks like Dumbles cast the Fidelius Charm again, so we'll need to learn the Secret all over again."

"That isn't how the charm works, though! It hides an aspect of whatever object it's hiding, which is… _that house_, in this case, and can only be exposed by the Secret Keeper. We _are_ Secret Keepers, though, and nothing in the literature mentions the possibility that time travel would negate knowing the Secret."

Harry cleared his throat to grab the girl's attention. "We didn't technically travel back in time, Mione, we traveled across timelines. We never learned the Secret here."

"I suppose you have a point. The effect time displacement has on ward access would be an interesting research topic, but it isn't important right now. We need to get the ring soon, maybe next week?" When neither of her lovers disagreed, she blocked off a section of their summer schedule. "Next we'll run actual jobs. Any suggestions for the first one?"

"_Dolohov._"

Hermione and Harry stared at Luna. Her voice was grim, and her eyes flinty as she stared at Hermione's chest, where the scar she had gained in the Ministry no longer resided. "He tried to kill you, and almost succeeded," she continued. "Let's rob his arse first."

"If we're going to be satisfying old grudges," Harry said, "I'm putting forth the Greengrass family and Umbitch." The eldest Greengrass daughter, Daphne, had been a member of the same conspiracy to seduce him that Edgecombe was a part of. Unlike the other girls, however, her father was wealthy. Lord Greengrass managed to bribe enough members of the Wizengamot for her charges to be dropped, only to turn right around and have the three of them convicted of _'defaming her character'_. Harry hadn't been too affected, as the Potters still had a large amount of gold in Gringotts, and Hermione had little of value to the Purebloods, but Luna had lost the Rook and all her family's land when the Wizengamot characteristically folded to one of the old families.

Umbridge needed no explanation.

"They are certainly worthy of losing everything, but Umbridge is _mine_; let's leave her property until we've broken her at Hogwarts." Hermione said. "I think we should see how these three tasks work out and what we need to improve on before we plan any further. We don't need to have too much on our plates.

"Since we still have several hours left before we get to London, should we get our annoying summer work out of the way?"

Luna's wand was out in a flash. "Who are you, and what have you done to Hermione Granger? Everyone knows she would _never_ insult the noble cause of homework!"

A glare was all that the blonde received, and Harry was quite proud that he hadn't laughed yet. "I may like learning, but we have already written all of this. It is not informative or purposeful; it is a tedious waste of time when we have a lot to do this summer. Now, hop to it." He and Luna shared an exasperated look and pulled out their own assignments. It was indeed tedious, part of the reason they would have been willing to put it off for a little while longer.

They finished their last essays only ten minutes before they finally arrived at King's Cross.

* * *

**The first part of Malfoy's dialogue comes from _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_, first American edition.**

**One question for all and sundry: in Deathly Hallows, Ron somehow spoke the password to get into the Chamber, but when Harry was shown, all he heard were strangled hisses. Why? All throughout the series, Harry can't distinguish between Parseltongue and English until it's pointed out to him what he's speaking. I know I'm not the first to point it out, and I doubt I'll be the last, but it has _always_ bothered me, even when I first read DH!**

**I _hope_ I don't have to explain the sexual benefits of Parseltongue to anyone; you should already know where I'm going with this. Perverts.**

**Finally! We are officially in summer, and my muse is quite happy about that. As you can tell, she walked out partway through this chapter, so if the last bit isn't up to snuff, I apologize.**

* * *

**codyw1:** Luna was with Harry, Hermione, and Ron during the Hunt, and she and Harry were developing feelings for each other by the time Ron left. Luna noticed that Hermione was interested in Harry but wouldn't do anything about it, found out that she was bisexual, lured her out of the closet, and then the two girls practically jumped his bones.

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** Luna found a lot of stuff in Filch's office, but I'm not going to tell you what just yet (obviously). Dumbledore is overconfident, so he would assume it was the Dursleys' fault Harry is healthier rather than Poppy's, who he thinks is completely caught in his web. Not that it would matter by then…

**Silently Watches out.**


	9. Family Reunion

**Disclaimer:** Do we see Hermione's parents even half as much as we do Arthur and Molly? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 9  
****Family Reunion**

A train pulling into its station is always a busy undertaking. There is, of course, some activity from the train itself, but most of the movement comes from the people standing on the platform, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their loved ones. This frenzy becomes even greater when all of the train's passengers are children returning from school; such was the case of Platform 9¾ when the Hogwarts Express became visible around the curve of the tracks.

"We're here," Harry breathed. It had been seven years since he had last had a reason to look over King Cross's magical platform. After the war was over, he had rejected the idea of returning to Hogwarts for a final year, the memories of the dead simply too strong for him to see the grounds again. Though they had eventually faded, by that time he was too involved in rebuilding Potter Manor and enjoying the company of the two women he had fallen in love with to bother visiting the castle or its platform. Seeing the platform again was just as bittersweet as he had anticipated.

Hermione hugged him from behind. "We are. We'll be able to see our families, take a break, have a little fun — families. My parents, they're okay! I didn't memory charm them yet! They'll still remember me…"

He turned around to hold her as Luna joined in the cuddle. She had left England only a couple of days after the Battle of Hogwarts, traveling alone by her own request; she had removed their memories by herself, so she felt that she must return them by herself as well. Unfortunately, the book she had learned the charm from had neglected to mention that there was a short window of about a week for restoring altered or missing memories. She had come back a few days after she left, without 'Wendell and Monica Wilkins' or any plans for them to join her. All three of them were then alone in the world, with no one but each other to count as family.

Now though, she had the chance to reconnect with her mother and father, and Luna could be with her father. He, admittedly, would much rather have nothing to do with the Dursleys, but he would take the bad with the good. His girls were happy, and that was his number one priority.

The trio had come down from their emotional high by the time the Express had finally stopped. Grabbing their trunks, they had already walked out the door of the compartment when Hermione palmed her face. "I forgot. Weasley," she said to their curious looks.

"Do we _have_ to transfigure him back?" Luna asked.

He shrugged. "While I would love keeping him stuck as a pillow, we're still vulnerable. We have little money, no allies, and enough enemies to host a convention. Can we keep the Light off our backs for a little while, at least until Voldemort and his minions are dead, buried, and had their graves danced on?"

She sighed in response. "Fine, let's retrieve the sleeping stomach."

A wave of Hermione's wand had the red-head back in human form, though still unconscious. She was about to _Ennervate_ him when Harry grabbed her hand. "Hold up just a moment, there's something I want to do to him first." He drew his wand and spun it through a long, sinuous movement. "Okay, you can wake him."

"What did you do to him?"

Luna might still be as stubborn as a mule, but he had learned long ago to pick his battles; having two women looking over his shoulder had made that a necessary survival skill. "I dropped a small compulsion into his subconscious. Every time he thinks ill of one of the three of us, he'll wet himself."

"Toilet humor, Harry? Really?"

The blonde giggled, then cast a spell at him as well. "Now it'll burn when he pees."

"Luna!"

He smiled innocently at the enraged witch. "Don't you want to curse him, too, just a little?"

"I will not be party to any retaliatory actions that are that crude and immature!" Stamping her foot like a young child removed much of the dignity from her pronouncement.

"Okay, then Hermione, you don't have to take part in the fun," Luna said while patting her arm indulgently. "We'll just hold it as an IOU."

"But I don't owe you anything!"

"Yes you do, you owe me the laughter I'll get when you finally pull that stick out of the mud."

Harry interjected, "Luna, I thing you have your metaphors mixed up again. She is a _'stick in the mud'_, and she needs to _'pull the stick out of her arse'_."

"Harry James Potter!"

"But I like the stick up her arse, as long as I put it there."

He couldn't keep his composure and laughed at the poor mistreated woman's reddening face. "You both suck," she said.

Luna nodded. "Yes I do, and Harry has never complained about my technique."

"I actually _don't_ suck," he replied, playing along.

Hermione just screamed in frustration, then pointed her wand at Ron. "_Ennervate_, and I hate you both!" She stalked out and slammed the door.

"Think we took it too far?" Luna asked him. He just shrugged; it wasn't the first time she had said that, and it likely wouldn't be the last. Once her anger had worn off, she would apologize for her words, with them knowing that she would get them back for their mocking, and they would apologize for having a laugh at her expense, with her knowing that they weren't sorry in the slightest.

Ron stirred. "Ugh, what's going on?"

"We're at the platform, Ron." Luna was already out the door, so it fell to Harry to catch the boy on the events he 'missed'.

"Already?" he shrieked. "What happened? I never got to eat any Chocolate Frogs!"

He nodded. "Yeah, you fell asleep right after we got underway. You looked exhausted, too, so Hermione and I figured you needed your sleep."

"Why would you do something like that?" he roared, then he grabbed the crotch of his pants as the dark spot appeared and grew. He ran out of the compartment, Harry staring in astonishment; while he knew the compulsion was going to be an oft occurrence, he was surprised that its first activation came _this soon_.

* * *

A glare and a bright grin greeted him as he stepped off the train. "So, who are we going to meet first?"

Hermione's glare morphed into a sickly smile. "Well, my dearest Harry, I figured we could see my parents first. After all, they deserve the chance to say hello to the man who took their beloved and only daughter's virtue, don't they?"

He and Luna stared at her. "No!" the blonde shrieked, grabbing onto him. "We only just got him house-broken! It'll take another five years to properly train up our next boy toy, even if he _is_ more pliable than this one!"

"Sometimes, Luna, you just have to know when to cut your losses," Hermione said in a sagacious tone.

Harry sputtered, and apparently that was the reaction the girls were looking for as they high-fived each other. "That's what you get for messing with me!" Hermione crowed.

"Hermione, that was so far below the belt that I'm shocked there isn't a dent in the floor. You don't joke about your father taking your boyfriend's twig and berries like that."

"Oh, pish, you two take the mickey out of me enough that you deserve whatever comes your way. Besides, Dad's a softy, and you'll win Mum over in no time." Having dismissed his concerns, she grabbed his wrist with one hand while she used the other to do the same to Luna. "Now come on, I want to see them and find out how Xeno's doing before I have to go back to my parents' house."

He struggled against her, truly he did, but the reunion with her parents had to have given her the strength of a giant for all the good he did resisting being dragged. Her walk sped up into a run when she saw them. "Mum, Dad!"

"Hermione!" her mother cheered, pulling her into a tight hug. She looked like Hermione had when she aged passed her gangly stage, so much so that they could have been mistaken as sisters. "We missed you so much! Gran came over this Christmas and was quite put out that you weren't there, though we mollified her by telling her you were attending that ball of yours. Oh," she said as she noticed the two teens her daughter was gripping like a limpet, "and who are your friends?"

"This is Harry Potter, you met him a couple of years ago, and this is Luna Lovegood. Harry and I met her this year. Harry, Luna, this is my mother Miranda and my father Jake." He and Luna chorused their greetings, and the four adults, though not all in body, shook hands.

"It's a pleasure to meet some of Hermione's friends, or meet again in your case, Harry," Jake said. He was a small, sandy-blond man, an inch or so shorter than his wife, and while he wasn't scrawny-looking, he would never be intimidating. "Are you two going to enjoy your summer break?"

"Yes, Mr. Granger," Luna chirped, "we were actually planning on getting together for a few day trips before the three of you leave on your vacation. If it's not a problem, of course."

He chuckled. "It's not a problem at all; Miranda and I are normally busy at our practice all day, so feel free to take her with you if you can drag her away from her homework and reading."

"Dad, you make me sound like I'm _obsessed_," Hermione complained. "Our homework is very important for our grades, and it's not like you don't read for fun as well. And just so you know, the three of us completed all our assignments during the ride here to free up time for our trips." Her point made, she stuck her tongue out in a move completely out of character for the dour teenager she had been at fifteen.

Miranda snickered at her daughter's actions. "If you two managed to loosen her up this much, you are more than welcome to come visit whenever you like. Would either of you be able to stay for dinner after your trips?"

"I'm afraid I can't, Mrs. Granger. Daddy gets lonely when I'm not home, so I think it best if I'm with him," Luna replied.

"Oh, that's too bad, maybe you and your father can both come one night. What about you, Harry?"

He thought for a moment, then admitted, "I might very well take you up on that offer. The less time I have to spend with the Dursleys, the better."

"Who?" she asked, her brows knitting together.

"My mother's sister and brother-in-law and their son." At her look, he elaborated, "We don't get along; they don't like that I can do magic, you see."

Strangely, his explanation only made her expression more severe. "Well, in that case, I hope we'll see you quite often."

"Harry, Mione, let's go see Daddy," Luna begged, tugging at them. "I want him to meet you."

They acquiesced and began walking to the opposite end of the platform. Many of the families that they passed looked at the trio in confusion, and some even had a hint of fear in their gazes; apparently the Ministry was not tolerating any delays in their drive to sling mud all over his and Dumbledore's reputations.

_Not that I blame them for __**that**__ one,_ he thought to himself. After the Second Voldemort War was over, Hermione had followed Skeeter's trail as much as possible to track down her sources, and to her distress at the time, the reporter/muckraker-turned-author had dotted all her 'i's and crossed all her 't's when it came to recording what she had learned. She obviously felt any embellishments of her own would lessen the sordid tale's impact, or perhaps she just wanted to avoid being trapped in a jar again.

While they were searching for a glimpse of the eccentrically-dressed man, he managed to sneak up on them. How that was possible in robes that looked like they escaped from an acid trip, Harry would never know.

"Little moon!" he cried as he picked Luna up and spun her around. "When the wrackspurts gathered in your room, I was worried that something had happened to you." He set her back on the ground and looked her up and down, then in the ear canal and at her left thumb. "You are older now than when you left."

"Well, of course I am, Daddy." She looked down at their feet, unable to lie to her father's face. "It's been over five months since I was home for Christmas."

Xenophilius Lovegood waved her comment away. "I am so sorry that I missed all of those birthdays. How many was it, six?" He winced, "Or maybe seven?"

"No, no, Daddy, don't worry about it. You would have been there if you were able to."

He nodded. "I see. I was kidnapped by the plum-haired Sifflelessers; they must have gotten hold of one of my articles on the breeding habits of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks."

"Yes, Daddy," she sniffed, "that was exactly it. Oh, I missed you so much!" She flung herself into his arms and buried her head into his chest.

He rubbed her back comfortingly as he nodded to the two teens. "It is nice to see you again, Harry and Hermione, though I don't remember us being introduced before. Blame the Sifflelessers."

Hermione smiled weakly. "Yes, Xeno, it's good to see you again, too."

Harry, on the other hand, could make no response. He was too busy fighting back his last and only memory of the incredibly brave man in front of them.

"_The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."_

_Perhaps, if the people attending Bill and Fleur's wedding had received Kingsley's Patronus a minute earlier, events would have gone differently. Perhaps it would have been just Harry, Hermione, and Ron who ran off and searched for Voldemort's Horcruces. Perhaps Xeno would have sold his honor and his integrity in an attempt to protect his daughter, all while she was being used as the Death Eaters' sex toy in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor._

_But that isn't what happened, for by the time the ethereal lynx arrived to deliver its message, the Dark Lord's soldiers had already Apparated onto the Burrow's grounds._

"_Harry!" Luna shouted as she ran to him and took a position at his back. "What do we do?"_

"_I don't know, Luna, but we need to get out of here. Now." He scanned the crowd for his two best friends, firing stunners at the numerous black-robed magicals attacking the guests._

_Hermione and Ron sprinted the last few feet to them, panting as they came to a halt. "Harry, we have to go. Sirius's house still has the Fidelius, we can take refuge there."_

"_Can we stop talking and go already?" Ron screamed as he levitated a chair in the path of a Killing Curse. None of the other teens were able to answer; a few of the Death Eaters had located their master's worst enemy and were bearing down on them. Salvation came in the form of a wall of blue smoke and a man whose fashion sense alone should have seen him admitted into an asylum._

"_Xeno, we…" Harry stopped once he caught a glimpse of the wizard's visage. Gone was the jocularity and slightly vacant expression he had borne at the start of the reception; his face could very well have been hewn from granite to account for its hardness. Suddenly, Harry realized that he had seen Xeno before, in the photo of the original Order of the Phoenix Moody had shown him the summer they had stayed in Grimmauld Place._

"_Harry," Xeno said, and his tone was completely serious, just as his daughter's was whenever someone insulted the _Quibbler_. "I do not know what duty Fate and Destiny have tasked you with, but I do know that it is essential for the downfall of this monster of a man. I will defend you while you escape from this place, if you but do one thing for me in return."_

_Harry glanced around at the contingent of Death Eaters who were making their way over to the group, their speed hampered by their need to torture the men, women, and children in their path. "Anything."_

"_Take Luna with you and keep her from harm. I fear that if you do not, unspeakable acts will be done to her, acts that she will never recover from. Give me your word that you will protect her."_

"_I give you my word." What else could he say? He did not want any of his friends to be hurt because of him, and if Xeno covered for their escape, he would owe the man a debt he would never be able to repay._

"_Good, now go. I will not be able to hold them off for long, only as long as a Nargle needs to get into trouble." He waded into the fray, shouting at the Death Eaters, "You will be far more fun to hunt than Snorkacks!"_

_The four teens had run to the edges of the Burrow's wards when Harry finally looked behind him and stopped dead in his tracks. Thanks to Xeno's robes and hair, he could still see the man, as well as the five Death Eaters the odd man was holding back by himself. He was too far away to hear the incantations Xeno was saying, but he was flabbergasted by the volume of spells, in all the colors of the rainbow, that the Dark wizards were having to defend themselves against._

_Harry turned, and grabbing Luna's hand, Disapparated to London. They would later hear that Xeno had eventually fallen in that battle, but only after the number of opponents he was facing had grown beyond eight at once._

Harry returned to the present in time to catch some of Xeno's and Hermione's conversation. "…and the article on Umgubular Slashkilter diets, you must certainly read that as well. It was one of our most popular issues, you know, due to Fudge once owning one; I sold almost as many copies of that edition as the one on Aberforth Dumbledore's affair with an entire football team in South America. And my wife added a wonderful recipe for plimpy and banana casserole that was absolutely scrumptious…" Well, perhaps it was more Xeno rambling and Hermione staring blankly at him, but at least she hadn't started arguing about the existence of the creatures he so adored.

He grabbed Hermione's arm, jarring her back to reality in the process. "It was wonderful to see you again, Xeno, but I need to get Mione back to her parents. I hope you regain the memories the, um, Sifflelessers took from you." He dragged her away from the Lovegoods and waved at their farewell.

"Ugh, I thought spending time with Luna was enough to immunize me from their insanity, but Xeno, no matter his other virtues, is completely 'round the bend. Why can't he be rational _besides_ when he's fighting for his life?"

"If he's anything like Luna," he pondered aloud, "then he probably offended sanity at one point, and it decided that it was better off without him." His contribution to her rant over, he listened with one ear to her diatribe as he ushered her over to the adult Grangers.

"Ah, there you are," Miranda said. "Hermione, we have to get going, so say goodbye. I'm sure you two will see each other again soon enough."

Hermione turned to him with mischief in her eyes, and before he could question what she was doing, she had pulled him into deep, lust-filled kiss. Harry, out of habit, closed his eyes and pulled her tight as their tongues danced, only to remember where they were and who they were with when a muffled snort reached his ears. He immediately pulled away and removed his hand from her firm backside. Miranda had her hand in front of her face to stifle her laughter, while Jake was glaring at him in a manner oddly reminiscent of Slytherin's basilisk. Harry sighed but met his gaze head-on. He had fought and bled in two wars; what did he have to fear from a mild-mannered dentist?

"I'm afraid I have to be going, Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Mione, is there a time you want me to come over, or should I call you later?"

"Oh, just come over on Monday, Harry. We're going to spend this weekend as a family and catch up."

He nodded and backed away from her still-amused mother and equally-enraged father to depart the platform into the Muggle side of King's Cross, managing to dodge the eyes of an expectant family of red-heads. Waiting there — none too patiently, of course — were the Dursleys.

"Get a move on, you lazy freak. We don't have all day to stay around and cater to you and _your kind_," growled his uncle Vernon, though Harry would never refer to him by that title again. He was lucky he had suffered a heart attack after one of Dudley's particularly exciting witch burnings, or Harry would have shown him exactly why the name Potter was spoken by Death Eaters with the same amount of fear they had once reserved for Dumbledore.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry said nonchalantly. He would have loved for his relatives' cruelty to be something forced upon them, perhaps by a compulsion or some magical artifact put in the house by Dumbledore, but their hatred were lamentably and entirely natural. Thankfully, he would not have to put up with their bigotry and senseless violence for much longer.

For Harry, like the Slytherin the Sorting Hat wanted him to be, had a plan.

* * *

**Ron's compulsion is an homage to DriftWood1965's _Harry Potter and the Champion's Champion_. Luna's addition is just because.**

**Kingsley's warning comes directly from _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_, first American edition. And yes, you read that flashback right, Xenophilius Lovegood is a badass. Just so you know, the escape from the wedding is where this whole debacle first ran off the canon rails.**

**You know what that ringing in your ears means? It's time for round two of "Guess that Reference!" Just like last time, there are three references scattered throughout the chapter. One of them is a story that's not on FFN, though, so I'll take the plot point all the stories have in common in lieu of that one if you can't guess it. And no, _Champion's Champion_ is not one of them.**

* * *

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** Ron and Malfoy are pawns; their Dark Lords don't tell them a damn thing other than what they need to do, unfortunately. Dumbles isn't omniscient, and he wasn't expecting the Ministry to take away so much of his political power. Needless to say, he won't be a major issue until later in the summer.

**Aealket:** Are you saying that you _don't_ want Malfoy to get Obliviated some more? I was thinking he would be an excellent case study, and "Adolescent Male Subjected to Repeated Memory Charms over a Period of Several Months" sounds like a great article in _The European Journal of Healing_ : ) Between the two of us, I'd volunteer as her cushion too, though I could do without the Transfiguration.

**jediprankster:** I was giving slapstick a try, so sue me. Actually, don't sue me; I'm going to be eyes deep in debt soon enough! As for the Elder Wand issue, I was making the point that if the master of the wand could defeat a wielder, then he should be able to defeat someone who isn't wielding it, too. I seem to remember Harry using _Expelliarmus_ on Malfoy, but I could be wrong; I haven't read DH pretty much since it came out.

**Maelwys5:** While that is a possibility, my recollection is that non-Parselmouths hear Parseltongue as a snake's hissing (in the books, at least, which is what I use as my primary reference source). Now, I can't tell a difference in the sounds a snake makes to begin with, but even if I could, I would have a lot of trouble replicating a sound I only heard once five years previously. And yet, Ron is supposed to get it right the first time?

**Silently Watches out.**


	10. Home Sweet Home

**I'm letting you know now, the first part of this chapter is somewhat dry and technical as it gives a brief introduction to warding theory. If you skip it, you'll probably be confused later in the story when the trio start their heists.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry ever punish the Dursleys for how they treated him his entire life? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 10  
****Home Sweet Home**

The drive back to Number 4 Privet Drive was tense, just like it always was. There was a routine here, a ritual of sorts, that the four relatives in the car followed every time Harry returned from Hogwarts to Surrey. Vernon, the small-minded bigot, would drive, snarling whenever he saw something or someone that did not fit in his perfectly normal world; needless to say, he did so the entire way back. Petunia, the gossiping harpy, would make snide comments about all their neighbors, even though it was clear that none of the three males in the car were listening. Dudley, who while a month older than the boy wizard already weighed as much as three Harrys, would constantly stuff candy and sweets down his throat, his piggy eyes seeing nothing but the route between hand and mouth. In the past, Harry would have been silent while he relived whatever traumatic event signaled the closing of the school year, but now he did so because he had nothing to say to the three people he was riding with. Not yet, at least.

_Ah, we're getting close_, he thought as he recognized several landmarks of Little Whinging. Subtly sliding his wand into his hand, he tapped the rim of his glasses and whispered, "_Oculos magicae_." The outer edges of the lenses shimmered, almost like they were reflecting the surface of a lake, and a paper-thin, brownish-red dome flashed into existence a few blocks away. The magesight charm was more effective when used on the eyes rather than glasses, but he did not need to see the runes and formulae for the much-vaunted blood ward. No, he was interested in spotting a more relevant ward. There, at the corner of Magnolia Crescent and Ivy Drive, he saw the first of several pale pink orbs. These were the sensors for the open ward that the Ministry, in its infinite intellect, had decided to set up around the Dursleys' home.

Wards came in two distinct types, and Privet Drive had one of each. Closed wards, like the blood ward or anti-Apparation wards, served as barriers and prevented wizards from performing a certain action. They could be as specific or general as needed; transport wards, for example, only interrupted a certain form of magical travel, but the war wards he could raise around Potter Manor would the house and its inhabitants from a variety of threats.

Open wards, on the other hand, were set to detect whatever their casters wanted to know about. The Taboo that Voldemort had used during the Second War was a country-wide open ward, while the one Harry was currently looking at would record any magic that was used in the vicinity of Number 4. This was why he had been registered as the source of Dobby's hovering charm in 1992, and like the Trace, this magical detector would need to be subdued if he was to get any work done this summer.

Thankfully, Hermione had been onto something at the end of their first year when she stated that wizards had no logic. Each recording sphere had its own range, and none of those ranges overlapped. This created 'dead zones' where magic could be used without anyone at the ministry being the wiser. When he had first lived through this upcoming August, his _Lumos_ charm had fortuitously be performed in one of these safe areas, hence the Ministry not tacking that charge onto his casting of Prongs.

The average witch or wizard was not meant to know anything about open wards, because it was actually fairly simple to neutralize them. Harry did, and it gave him a tactical advantage over the zoo rejects that he had the misfortune of sharing blood with; when the confrontation occurred, and he knew it would, he could safely make use of their greatest terror to force them to leave him be for the rest of the summer.

Vernon's company car finally pulled into the driveway, and the Dursleys left him to gather all his belongings and carry them inside himself. Not that it was a task, really, considering that he had put a feather-light charm on his trunk before the Hogwarts Express had arrived at the station, but it was the principle of the matter.

_I shouldn't be all that surprised_, Harry groused to himself, _because when have they ever done something for me out of kindness? Even taking me in was because they were worried that other wizards were watching their every move._ He carried his trunk across the kitchen and had begun to ascend the staircase when he heard Vernon's bellow.

"Boy, you put all your… _things_ in the cupboard. You have so many chores to do that you won't have time for your freakishness."

He hummed to himself as he set his trunk down on the bottom stair and walked back into the kitchen where his uncle was standing. _Ah, that's where the pesky bugger is!_ The orb of the Ministry's ward was hovering in one of the room's corners, incidentally behind Vernon's considerable girth. This setup was just too perfect for Harry to resist having a bit of fun.

"No, Vernon, I don't think I will be able to do those chores. I have far too many projects to do already this summer. _Magical projects_," he said, enjoying watching the humanoid walrus turn purple. Just like Luna no longer feared what her housemates would do to her, he didn't care if Vernon had an issue with what he was or did.

Vernon pointed a shaking finger at him. "Now you listen here, boy. Your aunt and I put up with your… _abnormality_, so you will do what we tell you to do to make up for being a drain on us. We put food in your ungrateful mouth —"

"Food that I cook, and get to eat only what the three of you can't put away."

"— and a roof over your head —"

"I'm not sure that a cupboard under the stairs really counts."

"— _so you put your damn tricks in that cupboard, or so help me_ —"

"Or so help you what!" Harry shouted. This was a surprise to the obese man, and Harry let go of his temper; he had wanted to say this for _years_. "You can't do a bloody thing to me! You know why, you _freak?"_ He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help the delight he felt in throwing the Dursleys' favorite epithet back at one of them. Sixteen years of verbal abuse left just as many scars as physical abuse, even if they were invisible to the naked eye.

He slowly drew his wand, brandishing it at Vernon, who actually took a step back. "I can do what I want, when I want, and you're just going to have to get used to it. I have the power now, Vernon."

"But you can't," the walrus gasped, "they'll expel you from that school of yours."

"Oh no, they won't. You see, the rules change when you finish the fourth year; I can use magic whenever I want, and they won't do a thing to stop me. _Finite!"_ The blue bolt of light flew from the wand, skimmed across Vernon's temple, and hit the exact center of the Ministry's node. It turned a violent shade of red and shrunk from the size of a beach ball to that of an apple, indicating that it was temporarily disabled.

"See, no owls." Harry tapped the wand's tip against his palm to draw Vernon's attention; fear was the only language the man understood, so he needed to play this just so. "You know, they taught us an interesting little spell in Defense this year called the Cruciatus Curse. It causes pain, so much pain that people kept under it have actually lost their minds. It's illegal to use on another wizard or witch, but our laws consider Muggles — that's you, uncle, in case you forgot — to be nothing more than animals. I'm sure that the Ministry wouldn't mind me using you to practice it on."

By now Vernon's face had turned the white of old porridge, and he stumbled backwards only to trip and fall onto the floor. "You can't do that," he whispered, "you aren't tough enough."

"Vernon, Vernon, Vernon. You gave me fourteen years of hatred for you, your wife, and your son. Did you never think that it was going to come back to haunt you?" He walked to where his uncle's body was spread out and pointed the wand straight at the man's forehead. "Give me a reason why I shouldn't kill you now."

That was enough for Vernon, and with a whimper, he soiled himself. The stench was overpowering, but Harry kept his green eyes staring into murky blue.

"Since you can't think of one, I'll tell you. Just killing you wouldn't be enough. No, I want you to suffer, and anxiety is one of the greatest forms of suffering. You won't know when I'll draw my wand, what I'll curse you with. Am I the reason your back gives out, keeping you in bed for weeks? If you lose your job, is it due to your own incompetence or my magic? Have I wilted Petunia's prize begonias, or is it the weather? And do you know what the best part is, Vernon? Whether I'm the cause or not, I know and you know that there isn't one bloody thing you can do to me in return, not without making me very, _very_ angry."

He moved his wand away from his uncle and conjured three small clay figures in his left hand, one for each of the Dursleys, that he held in front of Vernon's face. "I hold your family's lives in the palm of my hand. Leave me alone, and you might just make it through this summer intact. Cause problems," he clenched his fist around the models, squeezing clay between his fingers, "and I'll make your remaining time on this earth hell.

"Do you understand?" Vernon stared at him, so he shot a pinching hex at the man's shoulder. _"Do you understand?"_ This time the walrus nodded, so Harry returned his wand to his pocket. He left the kitchen, then poked his head back in. "And clean yourself up. This isn't a barn, after all."

Grabbing his trunk, he staggered upstairs and tried to keep the shaking of his limbs to a minimum. Only after he had closed the door to his bedroom did he allow himself to collapse.

_Merlin's beard, that was harder than I expected. I don't __**want**__ them to fear me, but it isn't like anything else will make them back off._ He wiped off his brow, surprised to find himself in a cold sweat. _I need to get Potter Manor back into shape, just so I don't have to live here anymore. My threats will probably be enough, but I'll have to watch my back around here, just in case. There's no telling if they'll try to get rid of me if I don't keep an eye on them._

* * *

Hermione's ride back home was no less uncomfortable than Harry's. _This_ was why she planned everything out: what had seemed like a good idea at the time was certainly not in hindsight. Her mother had been increasingly withdrawn as the night progressed; her father, on the other hand, started grumbling about her having a boyfriend once they left King's Cross, continued while they were eating dinner, and was still going strong as they walked through the front door of their home in Chelsea. Her face burning in embarrassment from his threats of grievous bodily harm and a free dental exam, she rushed to her bedroom.

_Oooookay, I'm going to need to redecorate this place._ Her walls were a dark pink, completely at odds with the blue and gray her lovers had painted the master bedroom in the Manor. Her carpet was a thick shag rug, and while she would love to make it worthy of the name, it was just too different from what she had become accustomed to. To put the proverbial cherry on top, the bed sitting in the middle of the room was, much to her shame, absolutely buried in throw pillows. When she moved in with Harry, she had brought a portion of them with her to add a little flair, but he and Luna had given her an ultimatum once they saw how many she had: she could either sleep with her pillows or with her lovers. Obviously, she had returned them to storage at once.

Her bookcases, however, were the greatest eyesore. She had filled them to overflowing, making it difficult to pull any of her books free without causing an avalanche of paper. Her mother had ruled that she could only have three bookcases in her room, which meant she needed to push down her heartbreak and box some of the books up; taking note of the available spaces, she realized that she couldn't even fit all of the past school year's textbooks on the shelves. With a sigh, she transferred her shrunken trunk from her pocket to the nearby nightstand and started the laborious process of sorting her books.

An hour and a half after she had begun, there was a knock on her door. "It's open!" she called, her mind still on whether she should place the romance novel in her hand in the _'put on shelves if there's space'_ or _'deserves a second look'_ pile. With a mental coin flip, she dropped it on the former, which was several times larger than latter but still smaller than the _'keep in room'_ pile. The _'discard'_ pile contained only one book.

"Is it alright if I come in?" her mother asked. "I wanted to talk to you about Harry."

Hermione sighed. "Is this the _'I want you to stay away from him'_ talk or the _'I'm going to get as much information as I can in order to scare you out of dating him'_ talk?"

"Neither, it's the _'you're gone for ten months out of the year, and even though I know you don't need or want me around anymore, I still hope to be at least a small part of your life'_ talk."

She winced guiltily. In the future, she had drifted farther and farther away from her parents and the Muggle world as the years went by. It said something about their relationship when memory charming them was easier than explaining why they needed to leave the country. "I didn't mean to imply that I didn't want to be with you or Dad. Between the Quidditch World Cup last summer and the Yule Ball, I hadn't realized how little time we've spent together."

"I know you didn't, honey. I knew when you wanted to attend a boarding school that your father and I would miss seeing you grow up; I just didn't expect it to hurt this much." Her mother settled herself on the bed's comforter. "Now, about Harry?"

"What about him?"

"That kiss wasn't something two people who have just started dating do. It was far too intimate for that."

"Could you just ask the question you want to ask?" she asked, her cheeks stained by her flush.

"Fine, have you two been having sex?"

_How do I answer this? Yes, we've had sex plenty of times, but we hadn't at this point in time. She already knows there's something more going on between us, so I can't say no, but considering I told them I wasn't in a relationship in the letter I sent that Christmas, a few months is incredibly quick for me to jump into his bed. Perhaps a middle road would be best?_

"We have not had sex beyond oral, no."

Her mother blushed as well. "That was far more specific than I was expecting to hear."

"Mum, I understand your concerns, and I'm willing to answer your questions frankly and honestly. If you aren't willing to hear it, though, we could always postpone this…"

"No, no, we need to get this out of the way." Her mother took a deep breath in an attempt to relax. "Are you two planning on having doing so this summer, then?"

"No, Mum, Harry and I aren't going to have sex until at least the end of October." A cocked head prompted her to explain. "That's when Luna will turn fifteen."

"Why are you waiting until she turns fifteen?"

_Here comes the moment of truth_, Hermione thought. She hadn't accepted her attraction to other women until after she had already destroyed her parents' memories, so she was unsure how they would react to her leaving the closet, as it were. "I'm waiting because Magical Britain's age of consent is fifteen, and I want my first time to be with my girlfriend as well as my boyfriend."

"Oh." Her mother was shocked, but at least she wasn't visibly disgusted. "So you're… you're…"

"I'm bisexual, Mum." She reached out to take her mother's hand, but sighed and drew back when the older woman pulled away. She said sadly, "I thought you'd be happy that I found people who love me."

"I'm not _unhappy_, Hermione. But why? Wouldn't dating Harry be enough without also dating Luna? And how is he dealing with his girlfriend having someone on the side?"

"Um, Mum? Harry's dating Luna, too." She took in her mother's bewildered expression and said hurriedly, "She and I were both attracted to Harry, and when we realized that we also had feelings for each other, we felt that we could make the relationship work. Harry certainly doesn't mind having two girlfriends. Mum? Miranda?"

Her mother started at her name "I see. Er, that's fine." She stood from the bed and robotically walked over to the door. "I'll see you in the morning for breakfast."

"Mum, please don't go. I don't want you angry with me just for being who I am."

"I'm not angry, Hermione. I… need some time to process this, that's all. We'll talk more tomorrow." With that, she departed.

Hermione fell face-first into her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. That hadn't gone as well as she had hoped. _It's a good thing that Harry will have the Manor mostly repaired this month. I may need a place to stay earlier than I planned._

* * *

Luna's ride home was short and uneventful. She and her father used the Floo to travel to the Rook, and then they prepared a simple dinner. As she brushed her hair before bed, she couldn't help but rejoice in having the Rook back at last. _It's wonderful to be home again._

* * *

**I'm not happy with the first scene. I don't know if it's the information dump in the beginning, or that the confrontation with Vernon sounds stilted, or that Harry just isn't that cold. I rewrote the scene twice, and this is the best I came up with.**

**Don't worry, the Grangers aren't going to disown Hermione because of her orientation or anything similar. I just feel that, if they grew up in the same era as my parents — which they would have if they had Hermione in their mid-twenties or older — they wouldn't be comfortable with the idea that their daughter was attracted to her own gender. That's not to say they have won't eventually accept it; they just never expected to be in that situation.**

**Does anyone care about the references, or would you rather I just made the occasional recommendation? In case you were curious, they were _Vox Corporis_ by MissAnnThropic (Jake and Miranda Granger), _This Means War_ by Jeconais on (Xeno/Horatio's article on Aberforth and the Brazilian soccer players), and _Holly Evans and the Spiral Path_ by wordhammer (Dumbledore's enchanted clock that caused Harry/Holly to be literally tortured).**

* * *

**riffin121294:** The reason I put that description in is that Harry _isn't_ scared of him. While the fanon Daniel Granger may be ex-military or former SAS (depending on who you ask), Jake Granger is just a small, relatively soft-spoken dentist.

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** Miranda did know who Harry was, but she didn't have a face to put with the name. In this time, Harry's already lived through the smear campaign once, and other than Umbridge, nothing bad happened to him. Not to mention, he doesn't care what the rest of Wizarding Britain thinks about him anymore after they laid down a _third time_ for Voldemort to take over. Molly's about to find herself in Harry's sights, but his problem with Ginny is mostly that she's deluded into thinking that he will fall in love with her. Unlike Ron and Molly, her actions weren't malicious, just obsessed.

**Silently Watches out.**


	11. Money Matters

**Disclaimer:** Do we know how much money the Potters had in their vaults? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 11  
****Money Matters**

Harry was pulled from Morpheus's realm by a soft snuffle. Cracking open one eye, he could just barely make out the white blur sitting on the headboard of his bed. "Morning, Hedwig." As with Dobby and Xeno, somehow she knew that he and the girls were from the future, and she had been quite put out that he had not immediately searched for her. She had thankfully restricted her vengeful pecks to his ears and hands, which he had healed as soon as she was out of sight. Considering how angry she had been, he felt it best that he not even try cajoling her into her cage, but had instead asked that she fly back to Surrey at her own pace.

Now that he was awake, he fumbled for his glasses as his stomach rumbled in protest at not being given dinner. He had fallen asleep practically as soon as the adrenaline from his fight with Vernon had dispersed; his Cruciatus exposure may be healed, but there was still some lingering fatigue from his magical core refilling after the experience. Hauling himself from his bed, he looked out his window and saw that both of the family's cars were gone, which meant he had the house all to himself, not that he would be there for long that morning.

After luxuriating in a warm shower for half an hour and changing into clothes that weren't rumpled from being slept in, he strolled into the kitchen and almost nonchalantly flicked a finishing charm from his wand at the Ministry's ward node. He would prefer to shut down the ward permanently, but that would require disabling all of the nodes, casting a magic-dampening spell on the entire neighborhood, and then using magesight to track down the wardstones and remove them. Quite frankly, he had better uses for his time, especially since he would spend the days he wasn't with the girls rebuilding Potter Manor.

Another growl from his abdomen reminded him of his priorities. "Dobby," he called out, and the elf appeared in a soft pop.

"Master Harry calls Dobby! What cans Dobby does for Master Harry?"

"Could you make me some breakfast? I don't care what, just make sure that Hedwig has plenty of bacon."

Dobby nodded at his usual frantic pace. "Dobby be making lots of rashers for Her Owlness."

Shaking his head at the elf's title for the owl — not that she wouldn't demand to be referred to by it if she could speak — Harry idly watched the pans and food flying through the air, eggs in a conga line waiting to be fried and sausages frolicking in a buttered skillet. Soon enough the entertainment was over, and Harry dedicated his attention to satisfying the beast in his belly while Hedwig, who had joined them midway through the show, contently munched on her greasy bacon. Once finished, he pushed himself away from the table. His plate vanished before he could pick it up, causing the snowy owl to glare blearily at Dobby. If he knew his bird as well as he thought, and he did, she would diligently eat the last crumb of pork before taking her day's rest.

He returned to his bedroom and found the key to his Gringotts vault. He pictured the Leaky Cauldron in his mind's eye, spun on his heel… and nothing happened. Frowning, he attempted to Disapparate again with the same results. _Odd, I distinctly remember Fletcher and Dumbledore Apparating and Disapparating around here._ He placed the tip of his wand against his right temple. "_Oculos magicae_."

The magesight charm provided a long-lasting passive effect when cast on lenses, like his glasses or Omnioculars, but it was meant to be used for the short term on the eyes themselves. The dome of the blood ward flared into existence, its surface racing with numbers and symbols. He ignored the formula displayed and twisted his wand as if it were a dial. The ward blurred and faded, but there was nothing outside of its protection, so he slowly spun the holly shaft in the opposite direction. Just inside the blood ward, threads drifting to the Ministry's node, was a thin white ward. He glanced at the runes drifting lazily across the surface and swore. "I was right, an Apparation ward with an additional charm to blind the Ministry to anyone coming in or out. Dumbledore probably cast it, which means he's the only one who can key people in. Well, he may want me isolated in this dump, but there's more than one way to skin a Kneazle."

Harry opened the window, allowing a hot, dry wind to blow in. He vaguely remembered this summer being oppressive, but at the moment, it was perfect for his needs; the high temperature would create a great number of updrafts for him to ride. He pocketed his wand and concentrated on his other self. He initially feared that he would be forced to meditate for several days or weeks to regain his animal form, but he was grateful when he felt his body shrinking, his fingers fusing together, his nose and jaws elongating to a sharp point. His clothing disappeared at the same time as his eyes shifted along the sides of his head and dark feathers sprouted from his skin.

After the first month of the trio barricading themselves inside the manor, they had all decided to become Animagi, and he had been overjoyed to learn that his form was a Peregrine Falcon, an animal that shared his love of diving at high speed after elusive flying objects. He was on the small side for the species, only sixteen inches tall, and that size was to his advantage here. A falcon flying around Little Whinging was an unusual event, but one that could be easily ignored; a teenager on a broom doing the same would be far harder to miss, and would almost certainly cause the Hit Wizards to arrest him for breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

With a hop and a few flaps, he moved to the windowsill and peered out. Snoring came from one of the bushes, so he forewent stealth and dropped off the ledge, his wings catching the hot air and bringing him up to a soaring height with a minimum of effort. He lazily floated away from the neighborhood, savoring the joy of flight once more, but he landed on a nearby rooftop after ten minutes. He was far enough away from Privet Drive by now to be out of the Ministry's ward, so he retook his original shape and again tried to travel to London. This time he was successful.

* * *

Diagon Alley was bustling when he entered from the Leaky Cauldron. Not that they knew it was him, of course; it was incredibly what simply changing his hair to a limp mousey brown did to lessen his noticeability. He had gleaned from the headlines of the _Daily Prophet_ that the Ministry was already focused on destroying his reputation. Why else would they have featured a photograph of him right after escaping the graveyard, bloodstains and pallid face included? Shaking his head in exasperation, he began the trek to the marble behemoth of Gringotts.

"Packed with morons, of course," he groused, mocking his first memory of Molly Weasley in the same breath. He impatiently went to the end of the line farthest from the giant bronze doors and waited for his turn with the teller.

The creation of Gringotts Bank was an interesting footnote in the history of Magical Britain. During the goblin rebellion of 1756, the last remnants of the goblin force had been forced back to their stronghold in the northern Pennines mountain range, and the Wizarding Army spent seven weeks attempting fruitlessly to break through the underground fortress's defenses. Just as the Ministry was weighing the risks and rewards of using Fiendfyre on the mountains, so the tale went, a messenger from the Gringott clan brought word that the clan leader wished a parley. Their discourse lasted long into the night, but a deal was eventually struck. A platoon of wizards were guided into the fortress through a series of tunnels the next day and opened the main gate for the rest of the army to enter through.

Once the war was over, the sole remaining clan of British goblins demanded that Ministry uphold its side of the bargain. No one wanted the fighting to continue, so the goblins were given the control of the human's gold they wanted so much. The wizards, though, got the last laugh; the clan leader had been so desperate for the war to be over that he had neglected to read the magically binding treaty thoroughly before signing and missed the section that prevented that greedy and violent race from raising their weapons at the Wizarding World ever again. Their last native enemy defeated, the army was soon disbanded except for the elite Aurora Company that guarded the Minister and Wizengamot. Aurora Company was later merged with the DMLE to defend the country against users of the Dark Arts, becoming the Aurors.

"Next," the goblin called out snidely twenty minutes after Harry entered. He stepped up to the desk and handed his key to the irascible creature.

"I'd like to visit my vault, as well as speak to the account manager for the Potter family."

The goblin looked at the key for a moment, then returned it. "Whiptorn, escort the human to Goldfinger's office."

A younger and — literally — greener goblin appeared as if out of thin air. "This way, human," it sneered, and led him through a grimy entrance behind the desk, down a labyrinthine hallway, and finally to a plain wooden door with Goldfinger's name carved into it. Whiptorn opened the door and unceremoniously shoved Harry through it before slamming it to.

"Sit, boy," ground out the day's third goblin, this one corpulent from sitting behind a desk eating snacks all day if the plates stacked on one end of the desk were any indication. "What business do you have with me?"

"I am Harry Potter, and I need to request an audit of my accounts."

"Prove you are who you say you are, and we can discuss your audit after." Goldfinger handed him a sharp-edged stone and a small saucer. "Fill the vessel with blood."

He glanced at the rock, its surface stained with other people's blood. "I don't suppose I can just swear a magical vow that I'm me, can I?"

"And trust you to know your own identity? Certainly not, you could be deluded or the target of mental manipulation. Blood, however, does not lie. If you do not wish to verify your identity, get out of my office." Seeing no other way, he closed his fist around the stone, its sharp bite allowing blood to flow into the dish. Once he had enough, he set the object down on the desk, and Goldfinger threw him a wad of rough gray cloth that he used to staunch the weeping wound. Magicking it closed would have to wait until he had exited the bank; drawing a wand here was a serious offense, and he didn't want to ruin his morning with a battle to escape the bank.

The goblin drew a black quill from his desk, set the nib into the pool of blood, which was quickly sucked up into the pen, and then placed it point-down on a scrap of parchment. The feather wrote out _'Harry James Potter'_.

"Good," Goldfinger stated, though his tone indicated the situation was anything but, "I was convinced that you would be the two-thousand, three-hundred and sixty-fifth person to try to claim relation to the Potter family since your parents' deaths. Now that that is out of the way, which account did you want audited?"

Thankfully, Harry had already claimed his vaults once, though he hadn't asked for an audit. _That_ was simply to reassure himself that Dumbledore hadn't been sticking his fingers where they didn't belong and weren't wanted. "My trust vault, the main Potter vault, and Lily Evans's personal account." His mother, like Hermione, liked to keep as many options open as possible, so she had opened a vault specifically for her _'mad money'_, as his lover called it. As she had restricted access to herself and her children, his father would have never been able to touch it.

The goblin grumbled at the work he was obligated to perform and pulled a thin book out of the shelf behind him to consult. "Your trust vault currently contains three hundred galleons, and will be refilled from the main vault on July 1 to a total of fifteen hundred. That vault has 80,497 galleons, ten sickles, and twenty-two knuts inside. Your mother's personal vault has a balance of two thousand galleons and five sickles.

"The accounts for the family vault and the Evans vault have not had any other activity after 1981 beyond the removal of security fees and the deposit of interest from their investments, and will continue to have none until you come of age and can legally demand entrance. The only activities for your trust vault this year were a transfer on August 1 to Hogwarts for five hundred galleons, and August 26, a withdrawal by one Molly Weasley of seven hundred galleons."

That was a _lot_ of money, far more than necessary for a single textbook and what he had since learned was a set of basic dress robes. "I didn't authorize for her to take that much from my account; she couldn't have possibly needed more than fourteen or so. Is there any way I can get compensation from her for the excess?"

Goldfinger harrumphed. "If you want to control how much someone can remove from your account, you should not _give them your key_."

He grimaced, that was a good point. "And you're _sure_ that no one has withdrawn any money from the other two vaults? I have reason to suspect that a… certain individual desires my family's finances."

This prompted a snarl from the goblin. "I do not care if this _'individual'_ claims to be Khorne himself. Unless this person can prove descent from the Potters or Lily Evans, he will not be granted access. Now, if there is nothing else, begone."

Harry cautiously stepped out the door and found himself in the lobby by the grand entrance. _I don't like the goblins much, but I can't deny they're efficient._

* * *

After healing his wound, then returned to the bank for _another_ wait to get a ride down to his trust vault, Harry made his way to his other destination, the shop of the reclusive and, if he was honest with himself, creepy Garrick Ollivander. He entered the building, ignoring the bell over the door, and moved his gaze over all of the room he could see. He still remembered being surprised by the elderly man when he first came in here, and he would prefer to not have that happen this time.

"Hello again, Mr. Potter."

He jumped forwards and whirled around, wand out ahead of him while he prepared to cast a shield with his off hand. Even though he was only two feet from the door, the wandcrafter had somehow snuck up behind him. "Do you have to do that?"

"No, I don't _have_ to. I just enjoy it." Ollivander walked over to the counter and sat down behind it. "Now, what can I do for you?"

Harry cleared his throat and joined him. "Have you heard about what happened after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament?"

"I have."

"Then you know that Voldemort has returned."

Ollivander frowned. "I do not know that, I only know that you say He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has escaped Death's clutches. Nevertheless, I fail to see why you have come to me."

"Well, when he was throwing curses at me, I cast a disarming hex at him, and our spells connected —"

"Connected, you say?" Now he had the man's full attention. "Connected how?"

"Well, both spells turned gold, and there was a lot of phoenix song and a cage of light," Harry said as he tried to recall the memory. He also knew that he would need to twist the story a little for his request to make sense; he couldn't say that needed a new wand because he survived his girlfriend using a Killing Curse on him, after all. "His wand sent some beads of light into my wand, and now I'm having difficulty casting spells with it."

"His wand forced yours to submit?" Ollivander pondered. "Yes, I can see how that might lose you your wand's loyalty. You are in need of a new one." Harry nodded, and the wandsmith rose from his seat and scurried into the shelves. "Very well, allow me see what I have in stock. We'll try this, and this, perhaps that, these most assuredly, doubtful but possibly, and those."

He returned with his arms loaded with boxes. "Yes, let us begin anew. Beech and dragon heartstring, nine inches, flexible." Harry gave it a wave, and a weak spark came out before Ollivander snatched it back. "Yes, that will happen now that you are accustomed to using a wand. Every wizard may use almost any wand, but those that are proper matches will be few and far between.

"How about hawthorn and unicorn hair, ten inches?" Another weak response.

"6½ inches, walnut and phoenix feather." There was a stronger reaction, but considering it sent a lightning bolt at the box the wand came in, he would prefer using something else.

"Pine and unicorn hair, twelve inches." A yowl of a dying cat, and Harry nearly threw it back at its maker.

They spent over an hour trying out different combinations, and Harry had become very worried about his immediate future, when Ollivander pulled another box from the back. "A strange combination, but you astonished me when you were eleven, as well. Eleven inches, acacia with heartstring from a particularly crafty Peruvian Vipertooth."

He took the wand in his hand and instantly knew it was different. It seemed to hum in his hand, and a short flick created a ball of brilliant blue light. "This fits even better than my old wand did."

"Interesting, very interesting. Your previous wand was holly, a wood excellent for protection, but one that often finds a match in wizards with a tendency for impulsive decisions." He looked askance at Harry, and the boy had the decency to blush. "Acacia, on the other hand, is usable only for wizards who have progressed passed the _'bangs and smells'_ magics, as I like to call them; wizards who understand the value of subtlety and prudence."

Harry certainly understood being subtle. After his lovers' near fatal accidents and the mass desertion of the various members of the Order, he had realized that he couldn't continue to wade into battle as if he were invincible, for he refused to put either Hermione or Luna through what he had been forced to deal with. Unfortunately, his dueling repertoire was composed entirely of radiant jets of color, so he decided to move away from the field of magic he was used to and look for something that was dangerous over a distance and could not be easily traced back to its source. One of the paths he explored was Mind Magic.

Memory charms, Legilimency, compulsions, even the Imperius Curse. These spells were invisible when they left the wand and, without proper preparation on the part of the victim, were nearly unbreakable. He had tried a few spells, only to find that he had a natural talent for them now that the Horcrux was no longer tied to his mind. It shouldn't have been surprising, to be honest, considering that he was capable of throwing off an Imperius cast by a master of the Dark Arts and that it took Snape several seconds to expel him when he had reflected a Legilimency probe during one of their 'Occlumency lessons'. It even explained why he had such difficulty learning Occlumency to begin with, for the two branches were fundamentally opposed; he could not be receptive to others' thoughts while holding a shield in front of his own.

_This_ was why the Death Eaters feared him so much. There were many witches and wizards who could hold off an assault by themselves for a short while given enough cover, but he was unique in that he would turn a battle into a bloodbath without anyone ever knowing he was there. Adding in his Invisibility Cloak gave him a distinctly unfair advantage.

Ollivander's voice pulled him out of his reverie. "That will be sixteen galleons, Mr. Potter."

"I could have sworn that my first wand was only seven."

"It was," the man explained, "but the Ministry gives me a smaller subsidy for replacement wands than they do for the first. My payment, please?"

He reached into his pocket to pull out his money, but a paranoid suspicion stopped his hand. "Mr. Ollivander, you weren't planning on telling Dumbledore about this, were you? He seemed unusually well-informed about my and Voldemort's wands, as well as their relationship to each other."

"Who I tell about the goings on of my shop are no one's concerns but my own. Is that all, Mr. Potter?"

"Actually, there's one more thing." A _Stupefy_ would have been easier, but a left hook was far more satisfying. He used his holly wand to levitate the unconscious man down the aisles to the back of the building and set him roughly on a chair in front of his workbench. "I really don't want Dumbles to hear about this. _Episkey, Obliviate. Ennervate_." The waking charm was quick to work its magic if someone had been hit by a stunner, but he knew from personal experience that it left several minutes of disorientation and grogginess when used on someone with head trauma. Pocketing both wands, he left Ollivander's store and the Alley entirely, then Disapparated when he was out of sight of any observant Muggles.

It was time to go home.

It was time to return to Potter Manor.

* * *

**Yes, the trio are Animagi; I hinted about it in chapter 3. I know it's fairly common in fanfiction, but it's a useful skill and, if three schoolchildren can figure out and complete the process on their own before taking their OWLs, it can't be that difficult.**

**I don't like the goblins, but I'm trying to be scrupulously fair here. They'll work as bankers rather than warriors, but they're not happy about it, which is why they are such assholes.**

* * *

**Since I _still_ have people bugging me about it, I put replies in the chapter because there are people, especially those without accounts, who will read reviews and wonder the same things that have already been asked; I know, I used to be one of them, and still am to some extent. Also, doing it this way means I can keep track of which reviews I've responded to. If you have a problem with this, remember that _I'm not forcing you to read them!_ At this point the chapter is done, so feel free to move on to something else.**

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** The "brownish-red dome" was the blood wards, and you saw the Apparation ward just a little while ago. He didn't care about the Ministry's ward on the house since 1) he already knew about it, and 2) he knows how to disable it.

**Crossoverpairinglover:** The main reason is that he spent the _entire book_ on Hermione's case because her cat acted like cats do while he let Scabbers/Pettigrew have free reign in the Tower, and I have a soft spot for the bushy-haired bookworm because she reminds me so much of myself at that age. Him getting mad at McGonagall taking _Harry's_ broom away for testing didn't help.

**Silently Watches out.**


	12. Potter Manor

**It's that sad time, my friends. This is the last pre-written chapter of **_**Faery Heroes**_**, so there will be a bit of a lag as I try to balance publishing all three of my stories. I'm hoping — **_**hoping**_** — to get one chapter done a week, but doing well in my classes comes first.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry only try to run away from the Dursleys once? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 12  
****Potter Manor**

Harry appeared in a dense forest, standing in the middle of a path. He slowly glanced around, trying to match the trees and rocks with the landmarks of the Manor's Apparation point. Satisfied he was in the right place, he twisted around at his waist as best he could, taking special care not to move his feet. When he had tried to enter the property for the first time after learning of its existence, he had Apparated in, only to find himself walking down the path he was on towards Nottingham proper. Several hours and too many attempts to count later, he had at last discovered the key to bypassing the avoidance ward.

With a swish and flick, he levitated a seemingly random stone in his immediate surroundings, one that was part of a small cairn. Placing it next to the pile, he cast a _Finite_ into the depression he had revealed and felt the barely noticeable pressure on his shoulders fall off. He smirked as he replaced the rock; this was the perfect example of the strategy the Potters had relied on when they were thieves. Easy to remember, quick to set into motion, and designed to take advantage of the average wizard's lack of common sense.

It also showed their expertise with wards, the reason the Hooded Foxes were so terrifying to the Purebloods in their fancy homes. Accepted fact among wardmasters was that there were open wards and closed wards, but while they could be used on the same area, they could never be joined. Raphael Potter, the man who started the family business, did not take this at face value, however; he had never cared what people told him could or couldn't be done; only what _truly_ could or couldn't be done. With his wife, a Muggleborn spellcrafter, he had created a runic script that used the input from an open ward to trigger a closed ward. It wasn't perfect — it couldn't handle more than two wards, and the script only worked if it was written in a combination of Norse and Sumerian runes — but because it was 'impossible', it provided an excellent defense.

Whistling as he walked, Harry traveled along the overgrown trail; the occasional cutting or vanishing charm flew from his wand as he cleared out the worst of the underbrush. The peaceful path from the Apparation point to the Manor's front gates always calmed him when he was angry or distressed, and it now served as a balm to his war-wounded mind. He arrived at the wrought-iron gates, opened them, and looked in sorrow at the sight in front of him.

Potter Manor was a relatively new building for the mansion of a Pureblood Noble House, completed in the early eighteenth century. It was a three-story home sitting on sixty acres of property and totally inaccessible to Muggles and uninvited guests. The house itself was reminiscent in style of a Gothic cathedral with its high spires and tall windows, delicate reliefs of ivy climbing up the walls. It had its own gargoyles, as well, in the forms of manticores, three-headed hellhounds, and even a winged occamy poised to strike over the front entrance. The only force to ever lay siege to the property — led by a member of the family who was angry over his younger brother being chosen as the family's head — had being given the 'honor' of discovering for themselves that the statues could be animated like Hogwarts' suits of armor.

At least, that was how the Manor _had_ looked. Contrary to popular belief, Voldemort had feared Harry's great-grandfather Timothy almost as much as Dumbledore. The two men were both extremely powerful for their ages and lacked any fashion sense whatsoever, but where Dumbledore fought in the political arena, Timothy preferred to battle with his magic; a professional duelist, his record number of consecutive wins stood unchallenged until the arrival of a young upstart named Filius Flitwick. Even in his late eighties, Timothy Potter had been a force to be reckoned with, so rather than make the mistake of attacking him directly, the Dark Lord had placed one of his friends under the Imperius and ordered the man to carry a large cauldron full of a highly unstable potion into the house and make it explode. The blast had killed Timothy, his friend, and both of Harry's grandparents, as well as destroyed the Manor's second floor. Only James being at school prevented the Potter line from dying out that night.

_And then neglect and the elements set in_, Harry thought. In 1998, the building was decrepit, taking the reluctant hero five months and twenty thousand galleons to completely restore. He strode up the cobblestone path from gate to entrance and pushed against the tall door; it didn't give an inch.

He sighed. "I forgot, the debris was blocking the door." Withdrawing a couple of yards, he muttered a short apology and pointed his wand at the wooden obstacle. _"Confringo."_ A jet of butter-yellow was shot at the thick wooden slab, blowing away a jagged hole. He repeated the incantation several times, stopping once there was a gap large enough for him crawl through without cutting his clothes or skin to shreds. After doing just that, he stood on a support from the ceiling that had jammed the door and took in the sunlight streaming from the hole in the roof.

A glance about the foyer showed him that he had a great deal of work to do before the building would be comfortable again. The wallpaper was faded where it hadn't separated from the walls, most of the furniture was likely water damaged, and the assorted cloth products, be they table linens, towels, or old clothes, were almost guaranteed to be ruined. Worst of all, however, were the various portraits on the wall; the inhabitants were safe in a group painting in the Vault, but they were also trapped there and would remain so until their normal canvases had been repaired or replaced. He gently prodded one of the portraits and grunted when the fabric tore; replaced, then.

"Dobby, Winky. Would you two come here, please?"

Twin pops heralded the arrival of the elves, and their eyes as they looked about the room was a curious mixture of horror, indignation, and ecstasy. Winky looked much better now than he last remembered; no longer did she wear the burned and stained clothes Crouch Sr. had given her, but instead a dark green sheet, possibly from the Slytherin dorms, that she had twisted into a toga. Dobby had changed his outfit since the morning, as he was now in a child-sized pair of overalls that had been dyed neon green and a hot-pink beret.

"I'm curious, which part of _'your clothes have to complement each other'_ did you two get confused on?"

Dobby ducked his head, and Winky muttered, "Winky tolds Dobby to makes them darker, but Dobby didn't listen. Now Winky bes in trouble with Master, too."

"Neither of you are in trouble," he said, glancing at the crest sown into the female elf's toga and on the top of her coworker's hat. At least they had followed _that_ part of his instructions. "You two just don't fit together well. Could you not agree on what you should wear?"

This time it was Dobby who spoke. "Winky kepts her sheet too dark, Dobby thought Master Harry wouldn't bes liking Snakey colors. And bright colors looks better with Master Harry's family's crest, they does."

Harry took a moment to consider that statement. The crest itself was a golden shield with a red sword and a black bear's head on the top-left and bottom-right quarters, respectively. A scroll with the family motto, _'Percutiam ubi hostes maxime timore'_, underneath the shield completed the picture. _No, it doesn't work well with those colors, Dobby. Even if it __**did**__, it wouldn't matter, since your clothes are blinding me every time I so much as look in your general direction._

"It _does_ look look good on you, Dobby," he lied, "and your sheet is smashing, Winky, but maybe you wouldn't clash so much if you changed the colors and styles to be a bit more alike. Other than that, you look fantastic.

"At the moment, though, I have some work for you to do." If he distracted them, he might just avoid having to comfort a crying elf. "As you can see, this house hasn't had any elves to take care of it. Everything's falling apart, it needs new furniture, and I'm sure there's no food to speak of. Can you take care of all —"

Dobby had been wriggling in place like a tiny Chihuahua that needed to visit a bush, and now he vanished, his normally quiet pop sounding like human Apparation in his excitement. Winky gave him a small curtsey. "It will be done, Master," she said, then she too departed.

"— that?" he asked the still air. _Note to self, keep an eye on Dobby for the next few days._ Elves absolutely adored cleaning, and the bigger the mess, the better. A manor house that hadn't seen a soul for seventeen years would be practically heaven, hence his worry. Left to his own devices, Dobby was liable to make a life-size statue of him from forks or grow all the shrubs into giant replicas of his head, or something equally embarrassing.

Shaking his head at the trouble his servant and friend could cause in his adoration, Harry crawled around remnants of the two upper floors as made his way to the Head's study in the back of the ground floor. It was as damaged as the rest of house, but thankfully what he was looking for wouldn't have been exposed during the attack. He closed the door and turned the deadbolt, then he tapped his wand to the handle to disengage the first protection on his goal.

The room had a number of broken display cases and bookshelves, as well as a large desk at the other end from the door. He walked over to the right wall with its pair of dirty windows and stood in between them, facing a copy of the crest built into the wall. Again he tapped; thrice on the bear's head, once on the bottom tip of the shield, and twice on the sword, one each on point and pommel. Resting the wandtip on the bear again, he made a circle clockwise inside the shield's boundaries. There was a series of mechanical clinks, then the emblem split vertically and the two halves swung out on hinges.

Staring back at him was a complicated structure of rings floating in a cavity carved into the wall, each piece of silvery metal linked with two or more of its neighbors. He sighed as he reached in and lightly tugged one ring; that little bit of force was enough to set it rotating, and as it did, another cluster on the opposite side shifted outward from its original position. He stopped the spinning ring before it made any further changes to the configuration.

He loved the wards on the Manor, he really did, but he completely and unreservedly _despised_ the Key, as the portraits referred to it. Yes, it gave him control of the ward scheme and allowed him to change which wards were active without the tedious and strenuous process of hauling wardstones around the Ward Room located off the Vault, but the Key was unnecessarily elaborate. None of the rings were directly linked to an individual ward; rather; there were a number of ward schemes that could be called up based on how the device was arranged. His painted ancestors could not tell him what those arrangements were — most of them had never needed to alter it from its default setting, and some unknown magic prevented the ones who had from revealing what they had done — so the trio had been forced to use linked mirrors, the magesight charm, and several afternoons of trial and error to find as many of the different schemes as they could.

The metal surfaces glinted innocently at him as he glared at the contraption once again. Each ring was covered in runes, and while he had taken the easy route and simply memorized the various patterns, his lovers had spent almost two months pouring over it, convinced that they could translate the inscriptions. By the time they gave up, they had isolated eight different languages, three of which they couldn't name or find in any of their books, though Hermione was sure that she had seen one of them in a Muggle manuscript. Harry was already wary of the device by that point; the Manor had been built long after the invention of enchanted portraits, and all of the previous family heads were represented, but none of them knew where the Key had come from or how it had been integrated so thoroughly into the wards. It was a family mystery, one that he still agonized over late at night when he couldn't sleep.

With a growl, he spun several of the rings at once, recalling the configuration he wanted. Luna called it the 'Hide and Seek', and it consisted of every transport ward they had ever heard of, bundled in a Fidelius, wrapped in a mild confounding ward to keep anyone from getting suspicious about why they couldn't remember the magnificent house in the middle of the woods. It even kept out owls who hadn't been told the location!

He felt the Secret settle in his mind and slammed the crest closed. Unlocking the study's door revealed two highly befuddled elves.

"Master Harry, where bes we?"

"Potter Manor is located in Sherwood Forest." Both elves' eyes cleared as the wards no longer rejected their presence. "Continue with whatever you were doing before just now." The elves popped away, and he rolled up his sleeves and began casting spells to lift the wooden beams strewn around back to their proper places. There was no reason he couldn't assist his employees in the repairs, after all.

* * *

Hermione raised her head and set down her book as yet another person knocked on the door. No one ever visited the house during the day, so _of course_ everyone and their grandmother would come by the one time she was expecting a guest. She had already chased off several door-to-door evangelists, a squad of Girl Guides, two men who needed directions, and a friend of the people who had lived in the house across the street _ten years previously_. Stomping over to the door, she jerked it open and screamed, "What now!"

Harry stood there with a bemused look on his face. He slowly twisted to glance behind him, then turned back. "Should I come back later?"

"Get in here," she growled. He closed the door behind him, and then she pounced, wrapping her legs around his waist as she practically shoved her tongue down his throat. His hands immediately came up to support her, and she felt her stress melt away as she relaxed in his arms. When her lungs finally reminded her that they needed air to work, she pulled away slightly and dropped her head on her shoulder. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too, but I thought you wanted time to reconnect with your parents. Did something happen?" He walked down the hall and into the kitchen as he spoke, setting her down on the edge of the table.

She looked down to hide the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, only for them to spill down her cheeks as he lifted her head. "I told Mum about us, and she didn't take it well."

"That's not surprising, I suppose. If we have a daughter, I wouldn't be happy to find out she's dating someone I had only spoken to twice. I'm guessing she wants me to stay away, then?"

A shake of her head was all she could manage as she recalled the gulf that suddenly existed between the two Granger women. "She doesn't have a problem with you, Harry. Now that she knows I'm bi, she treats me like a virtual stranger, and I don't think Luna will be welcome here anytime soon." She wiped her tears away in a futile gesture. "How long until Dobby and Winky have the Manor ready to live in?"

"Another week at least. Do you remember how we closed off several sections when we were happy with what space we had? It turns out that a few of them are actually so damaged that they could possibly cause more of the house to collapse. Winky said she'd talk to an elf she knows from working for Crouch and see if he'll come by and take a look."

"Are you telling me that elves have building contractors?" Hermione asked with a giggle.

He shrugged. "I guess so; maybe they make sure the house is fit for habitation before elf families move in. Soon we'll find out that we just think they serve wizards when it's really the other way around."

Her laughter spilled out as she thought of Lucius Malfoy bringing drinks to several stuffy female house elves while wearing an enormous pillowcase. She then reached out and pulled off her lover's glasses, putting them next to her as she stared into his eyes. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too," he replied, then bent down and kissed her again. This was looking to be a wonderful day.

* * *

**Yes, I know it's short and sappy. No, I'm not going to change it. Yes, it's the muse's fault. She's gone and found the champagne, and now she won't quit giggling. The next chapter will be out after she's sobered up, and the trio will **_**finally**_** go out and steal the Gaunt ring. Four Horcruces down, and two Hallows found.**

**The Potter family motto **_**should**_** read "Strike where the enemy fears most". It gets kind of screwy when I run it through a translator.**

**So you know, the rune language Hermione recognized was the code used in the Voynich manuscript.**

* * *

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** The Trace was already on the wand, but one of the trio _does_ know how to remove it. The blood wards protect him from Voldemort, period, end of story; or, at least, they used to. The holly wand makes a good alibi, so it'll be seen in Hogwarts for school work. I'm trying not to show _everything_ (otherwise we probably wouldn't even be at the train ride yet), so assume that Harry removed a single tracer from himself and Hedwig each off-screen.

**Faraway-R:** Having a talent for Legilimency or Occlumency doesn't _prevent_ someone from using both, it just makes learning the other more difficult than normal. In chapter 1, Harry refers to his "hard-earned Occlumency shields". Is it ever said in canon that Snape has a natural aptitude in either? And no, Harry stole the wand : )

**Assassin Master Potter:** A wizard having a wife for each house is a fanfiction invention. There is nothing in canon as far as I can remember about Harry, or anyone, being exempt from laws against polygamy.

**Silently Watches out.**


	13. Going to Work

**I… have not had a good week, and I may have taken it out on this chapter. There's a dark subplot introduced, but I have no idea if it will become something bigger than what you see here.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Dumbledore ever tell Harry the story of how he found the Gaunt ring like he promised? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 13  
****Going to Work**

A grin of amusement danced on Harry's face as he ignored the grumbling and glare coming from the kitchen. Luna didn't mind this task, in fact she considered it a fair division of labor, but Hermione would fight tooth and nail to get out of it. He pulled a sky-blue potion out of his pocket as she stomped back into the dining room and threw a dish towel at him.

"There, done," she growled.

"Good." He saluted her with the vial and choked down the chalky concoction before drinking some water to wash the taste out of his mouth. A flick of his newly unmonitored acacia wand vanished the empty vial to the Manor. Feeling her eyes on him still, he sighed. "Hermione Jane Granger, all I asked was that you do the Merlin-be-damned dishes. We had _sandwiches_, for crying out loud; it's not like I prepared a ten course meal!"

Strangely, this didn't improve his lover's mood any. "Language! And you know I hate working in the kitchen. If there's one place where Murphy's Law takes over, it's there."

_Tell me about it._ He had tried numerous times to teach her how to cook, or at least not burn the house down around them when she made another attempt, but she was well and truly hopeless. After six years, she was no more talented than she had been during the Hunt, where she had surprised them with fresh fish that had been burned on the outside and somehow frozen solid on the inside. Even washing dishes resulted in shattered plates and chipped cups; if she ever attempted to learn the _Reparo_ charm wandlessly, he expected she would successfully cast it on her first attempt.

"Now, what was that potion you just drank?" she asked in an attempt to change the subject.

He leaned back in his chair and motioned for her to join him at the table. "That was the Nutrient Potion you suggested I get from Poppy. She only had a few in stock, and we wanted to make sure Dumbledore doesn't catch on to what we were doing, so I picked up a case full yesterday from a brewer she knows. She said I'll never reach my maximum height — too many years of starvation at the Dursleys' hands, even for magic to fix — but we're far enough back in the timeline that I should be able to mostly catch up with the others in our year. At least I won't be mistaken for a second or third year again."

Hermione chortled at that. The last time through this upcoming year, a seventh-year Hufflepuff came across him returning from one of Umbridge's detentions and, not recognizing him immediately, thought some bullies had kicked him out of his dorm. He had been _mortified_.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Did you ask Luna when was the best time to show up at the Rook?"

She caught hold of her laughter and shook her head, then she drew her wand and conjured her Patronus. Setting the tip on her throat, she said, "Luna, is it all right if Harry and I come over now?" The message recorded, her ethereal otter swam a few feet before vanishing in a streak of light.

A matter of seconds later, a hare Patronus arrived from the same direction. "Of course," it said in its master's dreamy voice, "the Rook is always open for you two."

"Well, that takes care of that," Harry said. "Shall we Disapparate from here or go out to the yard?"

"May as well stay inside; not like there are any —"

Hermione's words were cut off as a second rabbit appeared. "Hold on, I need to put my paints up." After about a minute, a third flew in and said, "Okay, now you can come."

He stood. "Shall we?"

The brunette was about to respond when yet _another_ messenger arrived. "WAIT! I need to get Daddy in some pants first."

She glared at the dissipating hare while Harry just laughed. "Only Luna."

"All clear," said the fifth. Knowing that this wasn't the end, both of them waited a moment. Their suspicions were proven correct when the hare appeared yet again; he had never seen a disgruntled Patronus, and he would be happy to never see one again.

"A couple more minutes, please. The bear traps are still out from the party last night."

Mount St. Hermione chose this moment to explode. "Oh, come on! Now she's just making stuff up!"

He summoned Prongs and set his own wand to record a message. "Luna, why don't you send Vivian back when you've finished all the chores you're finding?" he asked, referring to her Patronus by name. Both girls had decided to name their animals after he first called his own by his father's nickname. Where Luna got hers he hadn't a clue, but at least it was more normal than _Menelaus_, who the brunette eventually explained was the father of the mythological Hermione.

"Well, I _suppose_ you two could come over now," her voice came slowly from the newest hare. "Just make sure you stay out of the basement. That's where all the traps are, and I don't want you to disturb the cuddlepus."

Hermione sighed in resignation, and he smiled weakly at her. He wasn't a believer in many of the creatures Luna and her father wrote about, but he also freely admitted that he knew little about magizoology. Besides, he had spent eleven years of his life thinking there were no such things as unicorns and dragons, only to see them his first year back in the magical world.

"Let's just go," Hermione muttered, and they disappeared from her house with twin cracks.

* * *

Harry had never seen Luna's house while it was still standing. During the Hunt, they had traveled there after Yaxley caught ahold of Hermione and was brought to Grimmauld Place, but the Death Eaters had already seen fit to raze it in revenge for all those Xeno had killed. Nevertheless, considering it was called the _Rook_, he should have expected it to look like it did.

The black, squat tower _did_ resemble a chess piece, though the large window jutting out from the front drew the eye and downplayed a bit of the similarity. None of the other, smaller windows were level with any others, so he could only guess that it had three or four stories in addition to the basement she had mentioned.

Winding their way along the twisted path leading to the edifice, they passed the stumps of Snargaluffs and several trees bearing fruits that looked remarkably like floating orange radishes. "Dirigible plums," he murmured, recalling Luna's distress when she had seen the burned remains of the orchard. According to the blonde, dirigible plums were native only to a small region in eastern Europe, and her mother had gone through great pains to cultivate them in Britain.

They approached the front door and saw Xeno, thankfully wearing pants even if they were crimson waders, tending to one of the two large crabapple trees flanking the entrance. "Ah, Harry, Hermione, you decided to visit after all. Luna's right inside; she has been looking forward to this trip of yours all weekend." His greeting delivered, he turned back to his pruning.

Once they walked inside the Rook, they had to double-take to ensure they had, in fact, walked _inside_ a building. The walls of the ground floor were painted with a rainforest scene so lifelike that Harry was tempted to pluck a piece of fruit hanging from a nearby tree. There were animals included in the scene as well, though they were mostly hidden in the shadows and looked all the more real for it.

"Like it?"

He turned to look at the young woman, a smile growing as he noticed her tie-dyed sundress and rainbow sandals. "I do. Was this what you were painting when Mione called you?"

"No, my newest work is in my bedroom. It's not finished, though, so I'm afraid you'll just have to wait to see it." She cocked her head as she looked behind him. "Since you mentioned her, where is Hermione?"

He turned around in surprise. _She was right behind me._ A scream rent the air, and both he and Luna ran toward the source: an open trapdoor at the base of a spiraling wrought-iron staircase. Casting the lighting charm with his left hand and holding his wand in his right, he charged down the stairs and nearly collided with Hermione as she fled up them. She rushed behind him and pointed down. "That… that… there's… oh, Merlin!"

"Oh, dear," Luna said softly as she pulled the frightened brunette into her arms, "I was afraid of this."

"Afraid of what?"

"She looked at the cuddlepus."

Now he was worried; merely looking at a creature shouldn't have reduced Hermione almost to tears, especially one that had as silly a name as _'cuddlepus'_. He cautiously walked down the staircase into the basement, stepped around the half-dozen iron traps between the stairs and the door, and peered through the sliver of space she had left when her terror overtook her. After only a moment he slammed the door.

If asked to describe what lay inside, he could only describe it as monstrous. It was as if someone had spliced together the foulest attributes of the Whomping Willow and a giant squid into a single unholy abomination, built a fifteen-foot tall living model of bones, teeth, and eyes ripped from a creature found only in a Dementor's nightmare, then slathered it in undulating fluorescent pus. But, he would warn, this no more approximated the _thing_ than a blister did the Black Death.

He staggered back upstairs and collapsed on the floor. A cold touch upon his brow caused him to flinch away before he saw that it was just Luna holding a glass of water. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left the trapdoor open. Neither of you were ready to see that."

He cautiously took the glass from her, his eyes roving over the walls of the house. After what he had just witnessed, the eyes of the painted animals had taken on an eldritch shine, and he swore he could see the leaves of the trees move eerily. "Luna, where in hell did you get that?"

"One of Daddy's friends from Dunwich sent it to him a week ago. Last time, it broke out of the basement and tried to eat our guests, so we had to banish it back to wherever it originated from. That's why I set out bear traps, you see, to keep it there; we never did get to study it, and his friend refused to send us another one. Between you and me, though, I find it more than a little disturbing."

"And does this _friend_ have a name?"

"Well of course, it would be very awkward to speak to her if she didn't," she jokingly chided. "Now what was it; Whossy? Whitby? Whateley? I wasn't paying much attention, to be honest.

"Drink, it will calm you down. It's probably for the best if we leave and take care of the Horcrux; I don't think you or Mione will be comfortable here for a while."

* * *

The trio Apparated to the town of Little Hangleton immediately after the two non-Lovegoods had a chance to regain their equilibria and sanities. Hermione and Luna had never been to the town, so Harry carried them side-along to the only area he knew well. And did he ever know it well, for he had seen it in innumerable dreams.

The graveyard.

"Well, this isn't creepy at all," Luna muttered as she gazed up at the statue of the Angel of Death. Harry had mentioned the role it played in Voldemort's resurrection, and in a fit of pique she transfigured it into a sculpture of butterflies. Harry's light chuckle told her he appreciated the gesture.

Hermione touched her wand to her temple and cast the magesight charm. "I think I see the Gaunt house. It's maybe a half-mile that way," she said, pointing in almost the direct opposite direction from the Riddle mansion. "That's not too bad."

"Any idea what defenses it has?" Harry asked. "I really don't want to wander in blind. We did that enough the times we broke into the Ministry." She took a second look and shook her head. "Wonderful."

"We'll never get anything done if we stand around like this," Luna said. The other two nodded and joined the blonde on her trek to the ramshackle hut.

Ten minutes later saw them casting judicious cutting charms at the brambles that had grown over the path from the main road to the shack. Hermione stopped them once the drab building came into view and reapplied her magesight. "I don't see any wards, but there are plenty of charms all over the walls, and another on the door. The formulae are complex and, if I'm not mistaken, use a base thirteen number system."

Luna groaned. "Parselmagic."

"That's what I think, too. Any chance you had a sudden epiphany and didn't tell us about it, Harry?"

"No such luck," he sighed. There were records of Parselmouths ensorcelling objects with incredibly deadly curses from both the Founders' era and the first Voldemort war, which Harry had poured over during his experiments to piece together the magic involved. He had tried to cast incantations in Parseltongue many times, and each attempt had been an utter failure. "We'll just have to make due with what we have. Any chance you can interpret what the formula on the door means, Luna? You're the one with spell-crafter training."

She shook her head. "We worked with base twelve when we discussed Babylonian magic, but we only looked at some simple examples and even that took us several weeks. I _can_ analyze it if you feel it's simply too dangerous to proceed otherwise, but I'm not sure I'll be finished before August."

"'_Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can,_'" Hermione quoted softly. "We've made it this far, and we have an expert at flying by the seat of his pants with us, so we may as well continue. Lead on, love."

Grumbling over her choice of description, he cast the magesight charm on his glasses and stepped forward a few feet, bracing himself for whatever tricks Voldemort left hidden from view. When nothing immediately tried to poison, crush, or dismember him, he moved faster but no less cautiously to the house. The rusted nail on the door was still there, but the snake corpse had long since rotted away. He performed several diagnostic charms on the entrance, but they displayed nonsense, which he expected after listening to Hermione's findings.

Harry hadn't been suicidal since his teens, so rather than grab the handle to open the door, he vanished the hinges and banished the door across the room within and into the wall. He paused for a moment, ready to sprint away at the first sign of danger, then waved the girls towards him; only after all three of them had taken a good look inside the single room dwelling did they enter and split up.

"If I was an egotistical and homicidal school-age psychopath, where would I hide the family heirloom that I used to achieve immortality?" he wondered aloud. The magic from the outside was running through the walls, not over them, so he doubted he would be able see the Withering Curse on the ring if the young Tom Riddle had stuck it there. Deciding to leave them for last, he examined the kitchen area. Hermione was looking over what he presumed was the single 'bedroom' section, and Luna was practicing the immersion technique by sliding on her belly like a snake.

"Mione, Harry, I think I found it," she said a minute or two later, standing and magicking herself clean from the decades worth of dust she had picked up. The other two walked over to her, and she pointed at an unremarkable section of the warped wooden floor. "This spot is slightly more level than the rest of the flooring. Tommy Boy must have used a _Reparo_ when he hid the Horcrux and didn't realize that it would stick out, if you'll excuse the pun." An overpowered levitation charm tore the boards away, revealing a shallow pit containing the Gaunt family ring.

_This is it. One quick Killing Curse, and then I'll have the Stone. All I have to do is keep Luna away from it, and I can use it whenever I want. Just a spell and three turns to summon my parents and Sirius —_

Harry shook his head. They had traveled back in time; what would be the point of calling Sirius's shade from the afterlife when he was still alive? And he would never be so selfish as to prevent Luna from speaking with her mother. She had memories of her mother, had seen her death, while the only reminder of his own was a Dementor-induced hallucination. _Wait a minute! Wasn't there supposed to be a compulsion on the ring to ensure someone put it on and triggered the curse?_

A cry cut through the last vestiges of the spell's hold on him, and he saw Hermione struggling to pull Luna away from the hole. "Get off me, Hermione! I want to see my mum again, and no one is going to stop me, not even you! _Accio_ Resurrection Stone!"

A vision of yellow light striking her sprang to the front of his mind, and he reacted in his typical courageous yet self-sacrificing manner. Throwing his wand from his hand, his Seeker reflexes came into play as he reached out and caught the tiny gold object flying through the air. An involuntary shout of triumph morphed into a bellow of pain as he felt the curse seeping into his skin, stabbing him with tongues of flame even as it leached the warmth from his body. He spun on his heel and flung the trinket out the open door.

While doing so broke the compulsion on Luna, it also caused the shack's walls to shake and split the roof with a loud crack. He summoned his wand back to him; grabbed Hermione, who was still holding Luna, with his good hand; and ran outside. They were not a moment too soon, as the house gave one last rumble and collapsed; if that weren't enough, a tower of fire gushed up from the foundation in an attempt to incinerate anyone trapped inside.

"Drama queen," he muttered as Hermione shot to his side and cast a spell on his shriveled, blackened palm.

"Luna, get over here! I need you to keep the wound from advancing while I neutralize the curse."

The blonde stared at them from the ground with unfocused eyes, watching whatever scene was playing in her mind. "I'm sorry, Mum. I didn't mean for this to happen. I should have done something, anything."

Hermione fired a stinging hex at Luna's exposed thighs. The unexpected pain snapped her out of her flashback, and she rushed over when she realized the problem. "What do you need me to do?"

"Stasis charm." With the other girl holding his injury in check, Hermione needed little time to restore his hand to its normal state. "Thank Merlin you only held the ring for a second or two. If you had put it on, I don't know that I could have done anything to help, even with Luna's assistance."

"This is my fault. If I hadn't been fooled by the compulsion, you never would have been hurt," Luna moaned, tears running down her cheeks. He pulled her to him and rubbed her back while Hermione conjured a small wooden box and summoned the ring into it.

"I'll deal with this; you have more important things to worry about," she said when Harry motioned for her to hand it over to him. She drew a small bag from her back pocket, unfolded it, and summoned a pair of dragonhide gloves. Once her hands were protected, she pulled out a large fang. She then scratched the band, and an upwelling of black smoke accompanied a disembodied shriek. A quick counter to the ring's curse followed, and she dropped the fang, ring, and gloves back into the bag and returned it to her pocket.

"We need to hurry. With that bonfire behind us, it won't be long until people come to investigate."

He nodded and lightly shook Luna. As natives to the village trampled through the underbrush, they Disapparated away.

* * *

**Dunwich and the Whateley family come from the works of H. P. Lovecraft. The Lovegoods dealing with entities from the Cthulhu Mythos is an idea I encountered in MariusDarkwolf's **_**Harry Potter and the Eyes of the Serpent**_**.**

**The graveyard is going to be one of the **_**only**_** times I use the movies rather than the books as a reference, but that animated statue pinning Harry with the scythe was just too cool to ignore.**

**Hermione is quoting part of Bilbo Baggins's song from Tolkien's **_**The Fellowship of the Ring**_**. If you've never read it… well, why are you spending your time on this? Get your priorities straight.**

* * *

**Wrathkal:** "Hide and Seek" is just one of the settings, and frankly one of the weakest. Since he and the elves are going in and out, he can't yet activate a ward scheme that (hypothetically) kills anyone who crosses the threshold, turns their bodies into horse heads, and then banishes them to their closest relatives' beds during the night.

**ladysavay:** Miranda has a couple of issues; first is that her generation was raised in a time where being gay was greatly looked down upon. She doesn't hate gays, but when her only daughter reveals that she loves another girl… well, child conditioning isn't something you can overcome easily. The second will be elaborated on next chapter, and it's one that I've don't remember ever seeing in these types of stories.

The Potter's haven't been thieves in generations. Harry's _trust vault_ has only fifteen hundred galleons; the main vault held 80.5 thousand. I said in chapter 2 that a galleon is worth £25 (I think that's about how much $50 is when converted), so we're talking a cool 2 million pounds. Not the half-billion some stories give him, but considering that the Potters had no house note, no power or water bill, no insurance, no car to fill up with gas, and could use _Reparo_ to fix torn and worn-out clothes, there isn't a lot they needed to buy besides food. I also see James and Lily contributing lots of money to supply the Order, which the family investments haven't finished restoring.

**Faraway-R:** Your breakdown of natural talent affects the two abilities and the description of the different characters is spot on. I had to look up what Phlebotinum was, but I can't say that the Key fits that description simply because it probably won't be crucial to the plot; that was just the only version of the ward-activation scene that flowed (and I tried about ten others before using the one you read). The trio knows what wards are available and tried to figure out the Key; the problem is that the rings don't act like switches or dials but numbers on a keypad. If they want a certain scheme, they have to "punch in" its preset configuration. I hope that made it clearer.

**Nebulous Narwhal:** I'm afraid this might put the thorn back in. Rowling's choice of "Horcruxes", as with "Patronuses", just doesn't fit the pseudo-Latin she used throughout the rest of the series. Latin-derived terminology pluralizes words in much the same way Latin does, so a word ending in "x" undergoes a letter change to either "c" or "g", depending on the vowel that proceeds it. "U" is a soft vowel, hence "Horcruces", pronounced with a sibilant second "c" and a long "e".

**Silently Watches out**


	14. The Good, the Bad, and the Stupid

**Disclaimer:** Did Dolohov get away with almost killing Hermione? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 14  
****The Good, the Bad, and the Stupid**

The sound of steps pulled Harry's attention from the Charms journal he had been reading. As soon as he saw that the arrival was Miranda Granger, he knew things were about to become very awkward very quickly. He closed the magazine and tapped the convenient 'table' it had rested on. "Luna, it's about time we left."

She raised her eyes from her own material, a sultry romance novel she spotted in Hermione's room. With a nod of agreement she was off her lovers' laps, leaving him to catch the brunette's attention. "Mione," he said while he nudged her. There was no response, not an unusual occurrence, so he covered the pages of her book with one hand.

"I was reading that, Harry!" she snapped before she noticed her mother. "Oh."

"Yes, _oh_. Mrs. Granger, it was very nice of you to let us come over today, but Luna and I should go and leave you three to your dinner."

The older woman hesitated before shaking her head. "Are you sure you don't want to eat with us? It's no trouble."

"Thank you, but no," Luna said as she smoothed out her sundress, which had risen during her time on the couch. He blamed Hermione and her wandering hands. "Daddy is having some friends over, and he always wants me to meet them. Harry, though, would certainly be more than willing to join you."

"Wonderful, one more won't be a problem."

"Aren't I supposed to get a choice in the matter?" Harry wondered aloud.

The two women spoke simultaneously. "No." Luna leaned over and kissed him, then turned and did the same to Hermione. With her lovers happy and Miranda bemused, she bounded over to the bags of school supplies they had picked up in Diagon after their jaunt to Little Hangleton and Disapparated with a loud crack.

"Well," Miranda said after a few moments, "Hermione, your father's going to be a little late, but could you go ahead and set the table, please? If it's not too much trouble, Harry, would you help me make a quick salad? Hermione told me that you know your way around a kitchen."

"Of course, Mrs. Granger." They walked into the kitchen, and he set out a pair of knives while she pulled several vegetables out of the refrigerator. They worked in silence for a minute or two, the only noise coming from the chopping blades.

"Do you mind my asking a personal question?"

He glanced at the elder Granger. "I don't, so long as you understand I may choose not to answer."

"Hermione told me about the relationship between the three of you, and I was wondering what your views were about it."

_So she's going to take an oblique approach._ He had expected something like this to happen after the three of them decided to spend the rest of the day here. "It's not easy, not for any of us. Our relationship isn't any more normal to the magicals than it is to Muggles, so we have that to contend with, but we each have personal hurdles as well. Luna's been getting a crash course in Muggle life since both Mione and I grew up in this world, but I don't think she believed us until today when she could actually _see_ what we were talking about. Though I adore both of them, I have two girlfriends who are extremely strong-willed and far more intelligent than I am, which can make it difficult for me to keep up with them when we disagree. Hermione… well, she still has issues occasionally with being in a trio rather than a couple, and it took her a while to accept her orientation.

"It's not all negatives, though. Your daughter is tied to what she reads in books, and sometimes it takes two people to remind her the most important parts of life can't be found in the library. Luna is a free spirit, but she needs us to keep her grounded; if we didn't, she'd disappear on a flight of fancy, with no one knowing where or how she was."

Miranda turned to face him fully. "And what about you? What do you get out of this?"

"Several things, big and little, but the most important is I'm not forced to choose between them. Luna is like the sun, shining brightly on anyone who takes a moment to pay attention to her. I was in a dark place when we first met, and after only a short talk with her, it was as if color had returned to the world." He smiled, remembering how a few minutes here and there in her company had raised his spirits and strengthened him during his atrocious fifth year. And to think he had almost given that up… "Hermione is my rock. She has saved me so many times, both from others and myself. When we first became friends, I knew deep inside that she would always be standing next to me, and though we've had a few snags, the Firebolt debacle in particular, I never doubted that she acted with the best of intentions.

"One leads me onwards, the other ensures I keep my footing. If I had to pick who was more important to me, I'd find it an impossible choice."

"Listening to you, I find it hard to believe you're just a boy of fourteen," she said with a soft smile. "You sound like a grown man, one deeply in love."

"I am. In love, I mean. Luna's a whirlwind; she dropped into my life, and shortly afterward I couldn't remember how I had gone on without her. Hermione, though, I have had feelings for since the end of our second year, when she was petrified. After she was cured, I pushed them down out of fear for our friendship, but that didn't stop them from growing."

"Even during the fight about the broomstick?"

He grimaced. "Neither of us handled that well. She was so certain that she was right — and she was, since Sirius had sent it — that she acted before she considered how to deal with the situation, like _telling me_ that she was acting at all. I, on the other hand, was too busy being an angry prat to even listen to her reasons. In the end, I think we learned from it, and it was better we received that lesson early on with something that didn't really matter."

"A very mature way of looking at it."

They were quiet for a bit longer before Miranda spoke again. "I just don't understand. Hermione was never 'girly', I'll admit, but there weren't any indications that she was gay. Her crush on that Lockhart bloke was so obvious that not even a blind man could miss it, yet she didn't act like that about anyone else until her letters over Christmas about that older boy; Krum, wasn't it?

"So when she told me about Luna and how serious it was, I didn't immediately leap to support her like I should have. The only thing I could think was, _'Who are you, and what have you done with my little girl?'"_ She sniffed sadly. "I have never been more ashamed of myself, but by then the damage was done."

"Hermione said you've been distant lately, treating her like she's a stranger," he said, keeping his voice gentle.

"I didn't mean for that to happen. I was just preoccupied watching her; if I didn't even know that she might fall in love with another girl, what else did I miss? So I watched, and she is so different from how I thought that it breaks my heart. You don't understand, Harry, but trust me when I say it is a terrible feeling to look at your child, one who is almost a grown woman, and realize that you can't even recognize her. I want to get to know her, but I don't know how, or if she will even let me."

Harry sighed. For the Grangers it had been ten months, but for them it had been ten _years_. He knew the Dursleys wouldn't care how, or even if, he acted differently, so it hadn't crossed his mind how attentive parents like Jake and Miranda would react to their now 25 year old daughter. Nor did he think about Xeno, but that man was impossible to predict.

"Mrs. Granger, it isn't that you don't know Hermione; it's that a great deal happened this past year, both good and bad. She was in a position where she could either grow or break, and she chose to grow."

"What do you mean?"

"Did she tell you about my name coming out of the Goblet of Fire, even though I never put it in?" At her nod, he spun his tale. He didn't want to deceive her, but there was no other option available. "Only a few people believed me, and Hermione was the only one who defended me from the very start. Unfortunately, when the school treated me terribly, she saw that the professors weren't doing anything to stop it; some even encouraged the students. She lost just about all of her respect for authority and looked at the staff with a critical eye. In doing so, I'm afraid she lost respect for several of them as people as well. She kept analyzing: what she was told, how people acted, why she should follow this rule or that. It was hard enough to keep up with her changes when I was with her every step of the way, so I can't imagine how you must feel looking at her now."

She chewed her lip much like her daughter, pondering everything he had said. "And that's how she found out she's bisexual? By questioning everything?"

"Actually, that's Fleur's fault, though Luna had a hand in it."

"Who is Fleur?"

"Fleur Delacour was the Triwizard competitor for Beauxbatons and a Veela." He grinned at the look of confusion she displayed; if she was anything like her daughter, that expression would soon morph into one of unbridled curiosity. "Veela are an entirely female race that interbreed with human males. They produce an invisible aura that is meant to lure men into their beds, but it has the side-effect of making women incredibly jealous of them. Some people, like myself, are capable of ignoring it; Hermione wasn't so lucky. Care to guess what happened when she found herself in that aura?"

Miranda began to chuckle. "Oh, my. You poor thing."

"Yes, for the first few months her mood swings _terrified_ me. Eventually Luna realized why she was behaving that way and pulled Hermione aside. That was in February, and she and I were tentatively dating." He paused for a moment, continuing to mix his fourth year with the time they spent on the Horcrux Hunt. "I never did get the full story of what happened. The next I knew about it, Luna led us into an empty classroom, kissed me, kissed her, and then said that she would be joining our relationship. It took about a week for that to sink in, and we haven't looked back since."

"And Hermione… she's really happy?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself? She's been listening to us the entire time." He pointed over his shoulder at the hallway, and Hermione stepped out, tears streaming down her face.

"Oh, Hermione, I'm so, so sorry for how I was acting." Miranda choked out, starting cry as well.

"Mum…" In a flash the two Grangers were hugging each other, and Harry walked out to the living room to continue his reading. He had a feeling they would be busy for a while.

* * *

Harry flapped his wings to slow down as he entered his room at the Dursleys' and returned to human form. He would prefer to spend his nights at the Manor, but there was so much damage that the bedrooms were a low priority. If repairs continued at their current pace, it would be livable some time in late August or early September, though the Treasure Chest would be accessible shortly.

He walked down the stairs as quietly as he could. It was just about time for the zoo animals' punishments to start, and he was still undecided what he should start off with for each of them. Make the kitchen look dirtier and dirtier the more Petunia cleaned it? Maybe a spell on Vernon's car to make him forget where he was driving, that certainly had potential. Dudley was the most difficult, strangely enough. His first thoughts consisted of simultaneous diarrhea and projectile vomiting, but that was just too pedestrian. No, for all those witch-burnings he had organized and the children he had murdered, ickle Duddikens needed something _special_.

A bulky blob stood in the hallway between the kitchen and the front door, a golf club hoisted above it. Harry shook his head in disappointment; it appeared Vernon hadn't yet accepted his new place at the bottom of the food chain. He transfigured the bludgeon into a bouquet of wildflowers and stuck the walrus's shoes to the tile floor. After examining his work for a moment, he added a curly pig's tail for a laugh. _Like father, like son._

"Who are you waiting for?"

"That no-good, unnatural freak. He wasn't in his room, but he has to come back sometime, and I'll be ready."

He rolled his eyes; he had been dodging frying pans for most of his life in this bloody house, yet Vernon really thought he would miss a fat man swinging that at him? Then again, he didn't realize who he was talking to, either. "What if he uses the back door?"

Vernon shook his head rapidly, which caused his entire mass to quiver like a bowl of pudding. "I locked it. No, this is the only way he can get in."

_Not a bad plan_, Harry thought, _assuming I didn't fly through my window like I did, or use _Alohamora_ to unlock the door, or transfigure it into something else, or simply blow a hole in the wall to make myself a new entrance. Still, I'll give credit where credit is due; he at least put some planing about what he was doing._

Dismissing Vernon from his mind, he disabled the Ministry monitor and began silently casting spells around the small room. An illusion went on the windows to show people looking through their curtains at the house, which would surely drive Petunia around the bend. Since he couldn't get past his uncle, he charmed the car keys to redirect the man's anger towards the higher-ups of Grunning's Drills and constables. A moment later he added a compulsion that would cause Vernon to constantly speed.

_All that's left is Dudley's. He needs something serious, not just embarrassing. Too bad I can't make him feel the pain he inflicts on the kids he bullies…_ He sighed. _Never mind. Luna created a spell for that very purpose._

"_Libera pena ad eorum qui illud causant,"_ he intoned as he waved his wand at the staircase. _I'll cast the other half on his lighter; he always had it on him last time._

Vernon turned his head when he heard the incantation, rapidly purpling when he saw Harry. He spun to swing his weapon, but the immobile shoes refused to comply. Instead, he let out a loud yelp and fell to the ground holding his twisted ankles, his shoes having split open and freeing his feet.

Harry caught the flowers Vernon was still brandishing. "These better be for Petunia and not me. Even then, you couldn't pony up enough money to buy roses? I hope you don't mind sleeping on the couch." He laughed as he left the bewildered man and finished his retributive tasks. Who knew messing with the Dursleys would be so much fun?

* * *

"You sure there isn't an easier way to do this?" Harry panted out as he kept a thin beam of magic aimed at the wardtap.

Hermione turned to him, her eyes twinkling from the still-active magesight charm. "Well, I suppose you could trigger the ward if you want, but considering it would melt you from the inside out…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Less complaining, more breaking down Dolohov's wards." The Death Eater's home was first on their list of places to break into and strip down to the bedrock, a list that had increased as they recalled more families who had offered at least tacit support to Voldemort's ideology. Dolohov may not have been as wealthy as, say, the Malfoys, but he was single and in Azkaban, which meant the only defenses would be the wards he had set on the house before his incarceration. Also, he wasn't lending a spare bedroom to the Dark Lord.

"Here, Hermione," Luna said as she passed over what looked like a silver tuning fork holding a quartz lens. "It's a static amplifier. Stick it in the ground with the crystal focusing the beam, and it'll take the brunt off Harry to power the tap."

Hermione did as the blonde ordered, and he immediately felt the drain on his magic drop to a manageable level. The tap was a stone sphere that leached magic from wards and funneled it through a copper spike into the earth, but the runic scripts engraved on it were so delicate they could burn out if two conflicting magical signatures were casting at the same time, hence why he, with his larger core, was the only one charging it. The amplifier, which used wild magic, had no signature and was an absolute godsend for any thieves without the benefit of a power-boosting ritual. _Note to self, find that book as soon as we get into the Treasure Chest._

"Thanks, Luna. Where'd you get that?"

"It was one of the things I took from Filch. I haven't finished sorting everything out, but I did find some stored anti-Apparation jinxes, vials of what I think is an untraceable poison, Peruvian Darkness Powder, and a rubber chicken that's cursed to bludgeon people over the head with it's metal beak."

"Dear Merlin, I never believed I would agree with that miserable curmudgeon, but he might have had the right idea after all." After several minutes of silence, Hermione spoke again. "I think that's it. Shut down the tap and Luna will blast the ward."

The Reductor produced a brilliant corona as the third ward fell. "Take a load off, love. We'll handle the rest." He gratefully complied and watched the two girls skillfully deconstruct the remaining two wards. The first couple were standard Apparation and Muggle Repelling and therefore easy to disable using brute force, but the others were rather unusual. Thankfully, a suggestibility ward keyed to the Dark Mark and Occlumency suppression were less likely to rebound on them than the blood to acid ward he had wrestled with.

By the time they were done, he had downed a Pepper Up and recovered enough to no longer be dead on his feet. "Shall we go inside?" he said as he offered them his arms. Luna set the pace with her carefree skipping, not stopping even when Hermione transfigured the door into a pile of leaves and conjuring a wind to blow them into the house. As with the Gaunt shack, they briefly inspected the ground floor before they scattered on a mad dash to test the limits of their space-expanded bags.

They had spent the week after retrieving the Horcrux researching, and it had been he who had the idea to use a little transfiguration to disguise themselves and find second-hand furniture stores and pawnbrokers in a number of cities across the country. Most of what they would be taking they could fence there, and what little was charmed or enchanted could have the magic stripped or be stored in Potter Manor's vault once it was finally accessible. If the Wizarding World was larger, they could sell the items to stores in Diagon, but since store owners would likely ask questions of origin they really didn't have time for, Muggle Britain would have to do.

Harry's first stop was the formal dining room, where he summoned every piece of china and silver, along with the silk place settings and the crystal chandelier. He then miniaturized the table and chairs and waved them into the sack as well. Upon seeing the various portraits frozen in their frames from shock, he extended a whip of fire, the same spell Dumbledore had used in the Ministry at the end of his fifth year, and whirled it around his head a time or two before he spun and set each stretch of canvas alight. The potential witnesses silenced, he rushed to the parlor next door.

Summon, shrink, summon, burn, and repeat. It became a relaxing pattern, and soon he was on the first floor walking into the study. The carpets with the Dolohov crest he left alone, but all the books and their shelves found themselves in his bag. He noticed the desk in one corner, and with a mental shrug unlocked the drawers and peered inside.

"Paperwork, paperwork, invitation to a ball, bill from St. Mungo's… what do we have here?" A jab of his wand vanished the sheets of parchment from the desk's surface where he had tossed them to make room for the small iron box that was hidden in the bottom drawer. The wand's tip glowed white hot as he ran it over hingeless metal and levitated the side he had cut off. His eyes widened.

Inside were a number of rings, each encrusted with precious gems. He dumped the box onto the desk and spread them out, astounded as the variety before he noticed two objects mixed in. The first was a small key, the same size as the one that opened his Gringotts vault. _Didn't Goldfinger say that Molly could take whatever she wanted from my trust vault simply because she had my key?_ He made a mental note to investigate that later.

"Little Tony must have been working overtime," he remarked facetiously as he picked up the second, a tiny hourglass hanging from a golden chain. "As Luna would say in this situation, we will have so much fun together."

"Hey, no stealing my lines!"

"Speak of the devil." He turned to see both Luna and Hermione. "What is it?"

Hermione smiled nervously. "I think I might be hallucinating. Can you come down to the the basement?" They backtracked to the room in question, actually a wine cellar which had been repurposed for the care, feeding, and torture of Muggles, complete with iron maiden and rusted hanging shackles. There was even a cage for Dolohov's 'toys' close by…

"Mione, were you hallucinating that the cell bars are made of solid gold?"

"You see them, too?"

"Yep. Luna, you're the Pureblood; explain this to us."

She chuckled weakly. "We're not exactly known for our common sense?"

* * *

**One bookworm speaking in defense of another: _never_ cover something while we're reading it. We'll gnaw your hand off.**

**I'm not a parent, so I, like Harry, don't know what Miranda is going through. I can only imagine how painful it is. Oh, and just in case you missed it, the story he told was a little white lie based on what _did_ happen during the Hunt.**

**Luna's charm, like the one on Dumbledore's Deluminator, has two parts. The first (on the lighter) "records" how much Dudley hurts people, while the second (on the stairs) relays it to him when the two parts are close to each other. I wasn't sure how clearly I described it in the text.**

* * *

**lordamnesia:** In case you're interested, another story with elements from the Cthulhu Mythos is The Mad Mad Reviewer's _Jamie Evans and Fate's Fool_. Gritty, irreverent, and so good it just has to be fattening.

**socar37:** If I made the story that dark, Paladeus (the creator of the challenge) would hunt me down and _shoot me_. As Hermione said, the only reason they could cure him was because he held the ring for a second or two; if he had actually put it on like Dumbles did, he wouldn't last the day. She may be good at potions, but she's no Snape.

**Silently Watches out.**


	15. Sand Falling through the Hourglass

**Get comfortable and hang onto something; we're jumping from a snail's pace to warp speed. This chapter starts in late June and ends in mid-August.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry risk expulsion and his soul to save Dudley? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 15  
****Sand Falling through the Hourglass**

"All told, how much did the stuff from Dolohov's house make for us?" Harry asked the next week.

Hermione consulted the ledger she had filled with the various receipts. "Let's see… 100,000 pounds?"

"How much in real money?"

The brunette glared at Luna, who responded with a guileless smile. No matter how often they explained it to her, the blonde was not raised in the Muggle world and simply refused to consider anything but coins proper currency. Paper, she had told them, was for printing on, not buying things. "About 4,000 Galleons."

"Oh, that's not bad at all. More than many people earn in a year, certainly." She paused for a moment, then added, "Does that include the gold bars we made from his cell?"

As he had been in charge of that exchange, Harry answered. "No, the goblins refused to buy it all at once, something about _'foolish wizards trying to destroy the economy'_. Still, they appraised it at a little more than 25,000." He smirked at their astounded faces. "It was about a hundred thirty-five kilograms of pure gold. Did you think we _weren't_ going to make a killing off that?"

He should have received more for that much gold, but the greedy little beasts were notorious for undervaluing any precious metals wizards wanted to sell them. They considered all that was mined from the ground theirs, whether they had any hand in its extraction or not, which explained why they only 'lent' their smiths' creations to humans and had replaced the gold, silver, and bronze currency with lead and stone spelled to resemble the older coins. Normally he wouldn't have even considered using Gringotts to fence the bars they took from Dolohov, but they had been enchanted unbreakable, which prevented him from melting them down and selling them in the Muggle world. The fact that the goblins didn't care where he had procured them helped.

"On a related note, I discovered an interesting bit of trivia. It turns out that Dolohov didn't have any special security for his family's vault, just the key. The goblins charged a few excessive fees to get everything set up and move the contents around, but we now have our own private account with a starting balance of twenty grand, plus the deposits from the gradual sale of the gold." Laughing, he passed a bronze key to each stupefied girl.

"Wow, Harry," Hermione said. "Just… wow."

Luna was far more animated and hopped into his lap. "And you say you aren't as smart as we are. Silly man, we wouldn't have thought of doing that in a thousand years." She ran her hands through his hair and ground against him, making him groan. "Besides, hasn't anyone told you that using your brain makes you extra sexy?"

"You know, I don't think anyone's ever told me that."

"Well then, I guess I'll be the first." She moved in and kissed him, slowly but passionately. "Will you be my first again, too?"

Hermione cleared her throat, her face clearly showing her regret at what she was doing. "Can we leave that for later, please? My parents are going to be back soon, and I doubt they want to walk into a teenage threesome." With disappointed sighs, they settled down, though Luna refused to leave her new seat. "We did well, but there is always room for improvement. What did you two see that we need to fix before the next heist?"

"Power," he said. "I know we planned to wait for Luna's birthday since there was a really good core-enlargement ritual in one of our books, but until then, we'll need to either space our hits out or get a lot more skill quickly. After October we won't have a problem, but as it's only June…" He trailed off, wishing that they could resolve this issue earlier. There were a number of other rituals meant to raise efficiency of casting or the speed at which cores refilled, but the easiest way to increase the amount of magic available to a wizard was to force the core to grow. Unfortunately, that set of rituals all required the beneficiary to have an unmodified core, so they had to be very selective about which they performed. The one in question used the sacrifice of a witch's virginity as the 'offering', an element common to almost all rituals that necessary to charge it and affect the change, hence the delay.

"Why did you insist we wait until you turned fifteen, Luna? I know you said it was the age of consent, but that can't be the only reason," Hermione asked.

"That _is_ the only reason. Sorry, I sometimes forget that you don't know all the little details that the magical-raised grow up with; when doing things like this, you have to be very careful that the offering meets the requirements specific to that ritual. If it doesn't, like the virginity being from a girl who isn't old enough to have sex, bad things can happen."

Harry winced, not liking the sound of that. "What, exactly, do you mean by '_bad things_'?"

"Impotence, hangnails, blisters on the bum, your insides replacing your outsides, things like that."

"Ah. Hermione, I'm siding with Luna on this one. We'll wait until October."

"No arguments from me."

Luna giggled. "Of course, it also means I'm going to have a _wonderful_ birthday present. We'll have to be discreet, obviously; just imagine the trouble us walking into the Great Hall bowlegged and hanging on your arms would cause."

"I'd rather not, thank you," he said. "Getting back on track, did you notice something to work on, Mione?"

"When I brought you two down to the Dolohov's basement, I had to scour the entire house looking for you. We should look into better communication, and soon."

"Oh, that reminds me," the blonde said, then she drew her wand.

He slapped his hand over his left ear where she had struck him with a point-blank piercing hex. "Shite, Luna! Ow. What was that for?"

"Stop whining, you big baby. Here, put this in." _'This'_ turned out to be a triangular shard of silvered glass hanging from a simple brass hook. Reluctantly, he slid it into the new hole in his ear and waited while she did the same to herself with another. "Harry Potter."

Before he could ask, the earring started to wiggle. He instantly caught on, smiling as he said, "_Accepto_. Very nice, love; when did you come up with this?"

"The day after the heist." The words echoed from the earring, which he now knew was charmed exactly like two-way mirrors. "Daddy was talking to a friend in Egypt, and it struck me that something like that would be very helpful. I knew we would need our hands free to cast, so I made them like those head-foals Muggles were making before Voldemort came back. There's one for you, too, Mione."

"Head_phones_, Luna. Still, how did you get them all connected? I thought the talking mirrors only communicated with its partner."

"It does, but that's because both mirrors are charmed the same time. The earrings were small, so it was easy to make them partners for the others."

He spoke the deactivation word — _Otium_ — and pulled it out. "Well, that takes care of the communication issue."

"Mm-hmm. I have something for us to think about. None of us are very skilled at this, and the only reason we succeeded at all was because there wasn't anyone living in Dolohov's mansion anymore. I think we should keep practicing with houses of other Death Eaters who are in Azkaban before we target places where there are people around, maybe even wait until after we've done some rituals in case we're spotted and have to fight our way out."

"That's probably a prudent course of action," he replied, considering all the things that could go wrong with breaking into a building filled with people. "The only problem is that there are more Death Eaters who stayed out of prison than went in. How many places will be left if we only concentrate on empty houses?"

Hermione pulled out a sheet of paper from the ledger and consulted it. "Half a dozen of them are in prison and have large, well-known manors. If we do our research quickly and stockpile our hauls for you to fence later instead of selling them right after we finish with each house, we should be able to visit most of them before Luna and I leave the country. Do either of you have any objections?" Both of them shook their heads, so she continued.

"Alright, let's look at our choices. First is Augustus Rookwood, former Unspeakable. Sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban on the fifteenth of November, 1981…"

* * *

The next three weeks were busy, and though they didn't manage to hit every manor on the list, they were pleased overall with the four they stripped. Hermione had departed with her parents to Australia for a month, leaving Harry and Luna alone for two weeks before the annual Snorkack expedition. Other than the occasional day dedicated to selling off their purloined goods and transferring money in Gringotts, they spent their time relaxing.

Of course, since Luna was notoriously cuddle-hungry, _relaxing_ often became quite intimate…

"Daddy and I leave for Siberia tonight."

"Hmm." Harry just pulled her closer to his chest as they lay on her bed in the Rook. This was something he had missed due to their hectic schedules, and while he knew where she was going with this, he didn't want to leave such a comfortable position just yet.

She sighed contentedly and tightened her hold around his waist. "Why were you so adamant about hitting the Lestrange house before the summer ended?"

"We've destroyed the diary, my scar, the diadem, and the ring. The locket will be practically gift-wrapped for me as soon as I get to Sirius's house. All I needed to get into the Death Eaters' vaults were their Gringotts keys, so if the Lestranges are true to form, I can just grab Hufflepuff's chalice and take care of it. Voldemort may not let Nagini out of his sight, but I'd like for the other Horcruces to be nothing more than bad memories by the time we go back to Hogwarts."

"And if the Lestranges were anything like the others, their key should be in their manor," she murmured. "That requires getting up, though."

"That is the dilemma."

They were silent for several more minutes, then Luna said, "I don't want you tackling it alone. It's too dangerous."

"I know, love. We _could_ put off getting the cup until school starts back…"

"But you don't want to leave the job when we're so close to being done." He sighed in response. She grudgingly sat up and got off the bed, leaving Harry to enjoy the view of the blonde wearing nothing more than her midnight-blue knickers. Only after she was completely dressed did he groan and reach for his jeans.

A dual Apparation later, they stood in sight of a blocky and imposing mansion, built from dark stone and emanating a feeling of dread. Luna cast the magesight charm while he pulled the wardtap and amplifier out of his bag, then he reached back in for their new set of wardpicks. The picks were thin pieces of metal, superficially resembling traditional lockpicks, and were carefully crafted foci. Each one had been made with a specific ward in mind, and a runic script engraved on the surface allowing it to produce an 'anti-ward', for lack of a better term; if the pair encountered a ward they had a pick for, they could simply pour magic through it and nullify the defense long enough to slip across the threshold without any ill effects. The tools had limitations — the biggest being that there could be multiple designs for the same ward, which therefore required multiple picks — but using them was far faster than completely dismantling the ward.

"I see an Apparation ward — keyed, obviously — anti-Portkey, anti-broom, anti-Animagus, a nasty skin-rotting ward that's thankfully down, and… that's it? That doesn't make any sense; it's like they're just begging to be robbed."

"Not every place can be ready to kill us," he said as he returned his tools to their pockets. He began walking toward the house. "We had to catch a break some time, even if it's the home of Bellatrix Lestrange."

"STOP!"

He stopped, his foot an inch above the ground. "Something bad is going to happen if I put my foot down, isn't it?"

"Step backwards slowly," she said. "Now stay right there and _don't move_. The reason they don't have any brutal wards up is that there are Gubraithian fire-pits buried throughout the yard, and you, with your usual bipolar luck, managed to blindly get in the middle of them."

"Oh. What's the plan, then?" 'Gubraithian fire-pits' was a dreadful misnomer; they had absolutely nothing to do with an everlasting flame. Instead, they were the magical equivalent of land mines, if mines could re-arm themselves after ten seconds.

"I'm going to bring down the Animagus ward, then you put magesight on your glasses and turn into a falcon. While you look for a safe place for us to enter the house, I'll knock out the Apparation ward and come to you after you're human again." She turned to the ward scheme as he heard her mutter, "And let's hope these wards aren't tied to the pits."

He gulped and applied the charm to his new lenses. With their influx of money, he hadn't felt bad about going to an optometrist and getting an updated prescription; a minor compulsion had even ensured he was given an appointment that same day. His sharper vision turned out to be a double-edged sword, however, as he could now see just how close he came to losing a leg. A quick glance behind him showed that, incredibly, he had somehow avoided three rows of fire-pits.

Luna worked with frantic energy and finally gave a cheer of triumph. "Animagus is a go. Fly over and search for a safe spot while I keep working."

"Luna, there's an easier way," Harry remarked, carefully not looking at her. He knew she was terrified that he would give into the falcon's instincts whenever they discussed this option. Still, desperate times and all that.

"Er, not that I don't trust you, sweetie, because I do, but things probably aren't that bad just yet. I can knock out the Apparation ward just fine —"

"Which is time and magic we can't waste. As for being _'that bad'_, need I remind you about the fact that _we can't set a foot on the bloody grounds without worrying about being blown up!"_ His point made, he glared at her, and she grimaced and looked away.

"Okay, just be careful. I'm delicate, and your bird is know for eating my kind as a snack." She pocketed her wand and transformed, her bright coat making her easy to spot on the grass.

He took a deep breath. _Time for the reckless Gryffindor to come out to play._ He cast a feather-light charm on himself and jumped ten feet up. As he fell back down, he sent a banishing charm at the ground, the slight recoil enough to propel him higher. The spell flew at an angle and set off a chain reaction of the fire-pits, but by then he had already sprouted wings and simply caught the updraft. Flying in a wide arc allowed him to build enough speed and distance for the next maneuver.

His quarry was running perpendicular to the property, careful not to disturb the outermost row of traps. He followed in a shallow dive, wings still to keep him in a straight line, and extended his legs while stretching his toes out as far as he could. Luna leapt as he began his ascent, and he snagged the little red squirrel out of the air.

She chittered angrily at him as they approached their destination, distressed at just how close his sharp talons were to piercing her flesh. Thankfully he was still feather-light, or his weight could have made simply grabbing her at that speed instantly fatal. He circled the house, fruitlessly looking for any opening that wasn't secured by a pit. _Not a single one_, he thought. _They must have Apparated directly into the house. That's the only way for them to avoid their own defenses._

Seeing no better choice, he did something that he would later admit was tremendously stupid. He oriented himself towards the topmost window, likely an attic, which he saw was not charmed unbreakable; Luna abandoned her scolding for squeaks of sheer terror. Once they were close enough, he let her go, moved between her and the house, returned to human form, pulled the airborne squirrel to his chest, _Finite_'d himself, and crashed through the glass into the house.

Foolish, yes, but he also felt it was one of the most wicked stunts he had ever pulled while flying. If asked, Luna would vehemently disagree.

He bounced and rolled on the floor, shards of glass digging through the skin of his back and arms, but he eventually stopped. Knowing his passenger had been safe from their entrance, he opened his arms and was instantly covered by furious blonde.

"You idiotic, reckless, short-sighted, simple-minded prat!" she screamed, punctuating each insult with a smack to his chest. "You utter bastard! What part of that was _careful?!"_ Her anger expended, she started to sob as she collapsed onto him. "Why would you consider doing something like that? We didn't come back in time and make a fresh start just so you could get yourself killed!"

Her tears were infinitely more painful to him than her swats, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her. "Merlin, Luna, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't even think before I did it."

"That's obvious."

Harry sat up stiffly, glass falling out and allowing his wounds to weep alongside his lover. He knew no words could make up for what he had done, so he offered none; instead, he let her cry herself out while he gently rocked back and forth. After several minutes, she looked up with her eyes red, and he laid soft kisses on her temple.

"That's not going to put you back in my good books any time soon, you know."

"I know." He continued his ministrations anyway; it would cheer her up slightly if nothing else. There was only one thing he hated more than his girls crying, and that was being the cause of it. He would rather rip out his own heart than do that.

She sighed and moved away from him. "Let me see where you've hurt yourself, then we can find that bloody key. When we're done with Gringotts, you owe me a ton of chocolate ice cream."

* * *

Harry strolled down the streets of Little Whinging, enjoying the cooler evening air. The past few weeks had been boring with both girls on vacation. He had whiled away most of his free time at the Manor, repairing the damaged rooms or piddling around the Treasure Chest; since elves were without peer when it came to working with houses, it was far more of the latter. He even broke out his long-neglected brewing skills to get back in practice for the next school year!

Still, he would give a great deal for something interesting to happen. It had been a long time since he was away from his loves for more than a week, and he was sorely missing them. Normally, Luna would do something silly that either put a smile on his face or forced him to help her quench the fires she started in the public fountain — which had happened more than once, to his consternation — or Hermione would go off on a research kick that inevitably drew the other two in. This was, of course, in addition to the danger just going outside into a war zone threw at them. All in all, he had been without peaceful alone time for so long that he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it.

He entered the local park and sat on a broken swing. The last few days had been filled with him pondering questions without answers, not an activity he took a great deal of pleasure in. How should he react to Sirius? What could he do to neutralize Dumbledore and Voldemort? Where would be the best places to hide Weasley's and Malfoy's bodies? _Actually, the last one isn't too bad to think on._

In addition, he was only now coming to grips with how difficult the upcoming year would be for them. _We never considered just how different we would appear once everyone's attention was on us. We don't act like teenagers, we don't cast spells like teenagers, and we're ten years too old to connect with our peers. Before we left Hogwarts two months ago, Seamus's attempt to pressure me was so weak as to be laughable, but it would have worked were we younger. Honestly, we're closer to the professors' level of maturity, but they would never treat students as friends._

Harry sighed as he continued ruminating, not noticing the purpling of the sky or the falling temperature. By the time he pulled himself back to the outside world, night had completely overtaken Surrey. He stood and worked out the stiffness in his legs, then began taking a long route back to the Dursleys'. The crossroad closest to him was one of the most common places for Dudley's gang to hang around, and he would prefer not having to deal with them right now.

After cutting through an alley, he realized that something was wrong. The stars had dimmed, as had the streetlamps, leaving him barely enough light to see his breath fogging in the sudden, biting cold. He looked down Magnolia Crescent just as two shapes, inhumanly tall and wrapped in ragged cloaks, dropped a third, obese figure onto the ground. A hoarse rattle turned the blood rushing through his heart to ice, and he reached into his pocket before the image of a wand lying on his desk came to mind.

"Bugger."

He turned and ran, not wasting time on berating himself for forgetting the Ministry's attempt on his life. He knew Fudge wanted him silenced by any means necessary, though he couldn't prove it, even in the past timeline; he knew Umbridge was such a fanatical Pureblood bigot that the thought of a half-blood with fame filled her with an incomprehensible rage, no matter that his name was currently being dragged through the mud; he knew Lucius Malfoy was likely just waiting for news of his demise to bring back to Voldemort; he knew in these dark times it was beyond foolish to leave his wand at the Dursleys'. None of that mattered at the moment.

What mattered was putting as much distance between himself and the soul-eating demons that followed as he could.

He knocked the front door of Number 4 off its hinges in his haste to get inside. The Dementors had inched closer and closer the entire way back, and he didn't have the time to worry about niceties like opening doors. All he wanted to do was grab the last of his possessions and get away from any location the Ministry could find. He hadn't thought of it in the past, but if they were willing to go so far as to have him Kissed, he was safest out of their sights.

"What the devil are you doing, boy!" Vernon roared.

Harry ducked under the fat arm that reached out to stop him and pounded up the stairs; from the corner of his eye he saw ice spreading on the windows. After entering the room and grabbing his wand, he magically packed everything into his trunk, slammed it shut, and shrank it. He ignored that the monitoring ward over the house was active again and had likely reported his infringement of the underage magic law to the Ministry. _Let them come. If it didn't require sticking around, I'd like to see them try to explain away three soulless Muggles._

With his belongings in his pocket, his wand in his hand, and his mind no longer stuck in fight-or-flight mode, he jumped out his still-open window and shifted into a falcon just as Vernon's and Petunia's screams reached his ears.

* * *

**I almost made Harry see all the mines around him and say "This can't possibly get any worse!", but decided that might tempt my muse a little too much.**

**Be honest, who thought I was going to take care of the Dursleys like _that?_**

* * *

**azrael rose:** The "record" function would identify all the injuries Dudley inflicted on someone, then give them to him when he went up the stairs. So, if he beat some little kid black and blue, he'd be sporting a lot of new bruises when he got up to his bedroom. I have no idea where Dolohov got all the gold, and it isn't really important, but isn't it good for the trio that he did?

**Joe Lawyer:** The muse threatened to whack me on the head if I didn't make the Grangers' reconciliation sappy. Harry's resolved many of his issues from living at the Dursleys', but low self-esteem is a very deep-set flaw that can stay with abused children their entire lives. He knows in his head that he's intelligent; he just doesn't completely believe it. And let's be honest, both Hermione and Luna are _very_ smart, likely geniuses. Fencing outside of Europe… alright, I admit I didn't think of that. Portkeys are, to the best of my knowledge, restricted (as seen in book 5), but he should be able to Apparate to the Irelands and France fairly easily from the right spot… Yeah, he'll be going to France for sure.

**Silently Watches out.**


	16. Reunion

**This is mostly a transition chapter, so it's kind of… meh. The last scene's pretty fun, though.**

**Disclaimer:** Did everyone let Molly get away with how she treated Sirius in book 5, while she was a _guest_ in_ his home?_ If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 16  
****Reunion**

Sirius Black was done arguing with these people. "ENOUGH!"

"But Sirius, you know what Dumbledore said —"

His voice was uncharacteristically harsh as he interrupted Molly. "Yes, I know what Dumbledore said. I also _don't care_; if he has a problem with it, he can take his lemon drops and sanctimonious attitude somewhere else to host the Order." He turned to Remus, who was standing between him and the door. "Moony, you heard what Arthur said. Harry, my _godson_, could be in that house, his soul ripped out by Dementors, and you want me to sit here and _do nothing_? I'm going to make sure he's okay, and no one — not Dumbledore, not the Aurors, not even you — is going to stop me. You have until the count of three before I curse you out of my way. One —"

"Wait, just wait," Remus said with his hands up. "If you go charging in, the Aurors will catch you, and _you'll_ be the one getting a closer look at a Dementor. How about, instead of a notorious mass-murderer, the visitor is an old family friend who just _happened_ to bring along his pet?" Sirius glared for a moment but sheathed his wand; five minutes later, a man in shabby robes and a dog arrived on the streets of Little Whinging.

He immediately leapt from Remus's arms and sniffed along the ground, searching for any sign of the boy he cared for as his own flesh and blood. Catching a scent, he raced ahead, his best living friend on his heels.

_Fine, maybe Moony was right, after all._ The house was absolutely _crawling_ with wizards and witches draped in red cloaks; literally, in fact, as he could spot one walking straight up the wall. The stench from the gliding nightmares was stronger here, a clue they had become excited as they closed in on their prey. He laid his head on his paws with a whimper, for once in his life praying to any being he could think of for his godson's safety. He had already plead to Merlin, Morgana, the Old Gods of the Isle, the Fae Queen, and was about to start on the Greek Pantheon when he heard a surprising but welcome voice.

"Snuffles? What are you doing here, boy?"

His head popped up to stare at Harry — who looked tired but thankfully not de-souled — and he pounced on the boy, licking every square inch of his face in lieu of hugging the stuffing out of him. Harry protested feebly, but only at the beginning; by the end, he was laughing at the mutt like he used to do as an infant. "Okay, okay, let me up; you're too heavy to be sitting on me. Lupin's been feeding you too many sweets again, hasn't he?"

Padfoot ignored the internal sigh at how Harry addressed Remus; he had never called the older man anything else in his letters, so it was foolish to expect a change now. What was more important was how healthy the boy looked. No longer was he short and scrawny; it looked like he had gained a stone or more in weight, and he had definitely shot up a few inches. Add the new glasses and fitting clothes, and he was barely recognizable.

Before he could shower his godson with more doggy affection, a stern, gray-haired woman wearing a monocle approached the trio. "Mr. Potter, I am pleased to see you unharmed. I am Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Harry stiffened, worrying the old dog. "And why would the head of the DMLE be in Little Whinging?"

"The investigators from the Misuse of Magic office called the Aurors when they arrived here, and they then requested I come personally due to the circumstances. If you will accompany me inside the house, I can explain in more detail."

"I'm not sure I will," he said, pulling a short wand from his pocket and summoning a large lump towards them. "It depends on if any more of your men plan to curse me in the back."

The woman stared at the unconscious Auror. "Dawlish? He's supposed to be guarding the Minister."

"Well, unless Fudge is here, I'd say he's neglecting his duties. He started casting at me when I left the park that's a bit aways from here, and he kept at it even after he saw that I didn't have my wand in hand."

"And how is it that you are standing while he is out cold?" she asked as she gazed at the boy shrewdly. Her eyes narrowed at his nervous chuckle.

"I _may_ have thrown a rock at his head. Oh, and this is his, too." He tossed the wand onto the man.

Bones sighed. "I suppose it's for the best if he was assaulting a teenager." She pulled her own wand out and charmed his cloak yellow, then dropped a wooden ring on the insensate form. The illustrious John Dawlish vanished. "I will question him later. Now, shall we?"

The inside of the Dursley house was just as hectic as the outside, but the den she lead them to was empty. Harry dropped onto the sagging couch, and Padfoot joined him, laying his head on his godson's legs and heaving a gracious sigh when his ears were scratched. Remus and Bones both conjured chairs for themselves, though his friend's chaise lounge looked far more comfortable than her uncushioned wingback. The woman pulled a quill and pad of parchment out of her pocket and addressed Harry gently. "Just for the record, could you please give me your account of recent events, starting last night at approximately nine-thirty in the evening?"

"I guess; I don't really know what happened, you see. I was upstairs in my room, packing my trunk when —"

"I'm sorry, but why were you packing?" Bones asked, looking up from her pad. "Were you planning to stay with friends for the next few weeks until Hogwarts resumed?"

"No, Vernon kicked me out, said I had an hour to gather my _'freaky things'_ before he burned whatever I left behind." At her nod, he continued, "Well, I was in the middle of packing when someone blasted the door open. When Vernon and Petunia started screaming, I figured being in trouble with the Ministry was better than dying, so I used magic to pack and shrink my trunk, then flew away from here as fast as my broom could carry me. I spent the night in an old treehouse in the park, came back this morning to find out what happened, that Auror attacked, and you know the rest."

She finished writing his statement and returned her gaze to Harry. "Thank you for the explanation. You may have received some letters from the Improper Use of Magic Office," he pulled a pack of envelopes from his pocket, "yes, those. Don't worry about a hearing or being expelled; you may not have confronted the threat directly, but a minor using magic to flee a dangerous situation is still considered self-defense, which is permitted by the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery."

"So I can go back to Hogwarts on September first? Brilliant," Harry said with a smile. Padfoot would have smiled if he could, but he settled for bumping his head against his godson's hip. Doing so got him more scratches, too; not his original plan, but nothing he was going to turn down. "Er, Madam Bones? Out of curiosity, what _did_ happen to the Dursleys? I'm guessing from your earlier words that it was nothing good."

"It wasn't, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to tell you this, but all three of your relatives received the Dementor's Kiss last night. You have my condolences."

"Don't bother," he said shortly. "This wasn't how I expected us to be rid of each other, but at least I'm not stuck here anymore."

The woman's expression shifted into one of wary confusion. "You don't seem very upset that your family is dead. Why is that?"

Now it was Harry's turn to harden. "Let's get something straight. They _weren't_ my family; they were just three people I had the very serious misfortune of being related to. They hated me my entire life, punished me for accidental magic, insulted me and my parents. Merlin, I just told you that Vernon kicked me out. I didn't want them _dead_ necessarily, but I'm not going to waste any tears or pretty words on them now that they are. All I have to say is good riddance to bad rubbish."

"I mean no offense, Mr. Potter, but you are far different than what I have been led to believe."

"And I mean no offense, Madam Bones, but whatever you have heard about me is likely either a half-truth or a flat-out lie," he returned. "I can count the number of people who actually know me on one hand, and none of them had any reason to speak with you. Now, is there anything else?"

The rest of the interview was short — basically Harry telling Bones that he didn't care what damage was done to the house during the investigation and that he could arrange the sale of the property without assistance from the Ministry, while she promised to find the rogue Dementors that had attacked — and soon the man, the boy, and the dog Disapparated away.

* * *

Harry stumbled as he let go of Lupin. He _hated_ being Side-Alonged; it always made him extremely queasy. Grumbling, he read the scrap of parchment with the Secret and was escorted inside, where Sirius pounced on him again, this time in human form.

"Oh Merlin, Harry, I was so worried! A pair of rogue Dementors, and in the current atmosphere, even using the Patronus could have gotten you in deep trouble!"

"Sirius, need to breathe…" he gasped, gulping down air when he was let go. After his face was no longer blue, he surprised both of them by wrapping his godfather in a tight embrace. They stood there for several minutes before separating.

Sirius awkwardly cleared his throat. "Well, you're safe and here now, and that's what matters most. It's a little late for breakfast, and early for lunch, but I'm sure we can scrounge something up if you're hungry, or we can move your things to your room…"

"The second one," he said, not wanting to reveal that Dobby had provided a filling breakfast at the Manor. If he could occupy Sirius until lunch, he would be able to keep that secret and avoid any awkward questions.

"Alright. You're staying on the second floor, and make sure you're quiet going up these stairs," Sirius whispered as they passed his mother's portrait, "it's best to let sleeping harpies lie. The Weasleys are here, too, so you'll be sharing with Ron —"

"Er, Sirius, that may not be such a good idea. He and I are going to be having… _issues_ fairly soon, I think."

The man turned to look at him. "Oh? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's _wrong_, it's just… He fancies Hermione, and since I'm effectively banished from the Wizarding World during the summer," he raised his hand to ward off his godfather's denial. "That may not be how it's meant, but that's what it feels like. Anyway, I was stuck in the Muggle World, so I hopped on a bus to Chelsea a couple of times a week to spend the day with her. Things went about how you'd expect with people our age, and now we're going to try out dating."

"Good for you, Harry! If it makes any difference, your parents would have loved her. Still, I see how this would make being around Ron difficult." Sirius thought for a second, then his eyes lit up. Crooking his finger, he led Harry up another flight of stairs and unlocked a door just off the landing.

Before Harry could ask anything, he saw the sign on the door. _Regulus's room_, he thought as he entered. Sirius was hurriedly summoning the yellow _Prophet_ articles detailing Voldemort's philosophies and first rise to power, so he took in the Slytherin-themed decor and massive Black family crest painted on the wall over the bed's headboard. "Whose room was this originally?" he asked, hoping to draw out more information on the young man who had ultimately given his life to destroy the monster he served.

"My little brother, Regulus. He was the apple of my mother's eye, the perfect Pureblood prince," Sirius said with a mirthless laugh. "He became a Death Eater right after Hogwarts and was killed a short time later, didn't even live to reach his nineteenth birthday. The worst part is that I can't really be mad at him for it; he was soft-hearted when we were younger, wouldn't hurt a fly, but he wasn't brave enough to risk our parents' disapproval. That's why he was in Slytherin rather than Hufflepuff, I think, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason he joined Voldemort.

"I'm somewhat to blame for his death, too," he sighed. "When I ran away from this house at sixteen, my parents forced all their expectations onto him. He was different the next year at school, and I never thought to find out why. I was too busy enjoying our monthly trips into the Forbidden Forest and playing pranks. Poor, foolish Reggie."

_Someday, Sirius, I'll figure out how to show you just how brave Regulus turned out to be. You say he'd have been a better Hufflepuff, but I think he would have made a decent Gryffindor, too._

* * *

The rest of the day was dedicated to catching up with Sirius, and Harry couldn't have wished for anything more. In the previous timeline, he had only been able to spend a month in total with his godfather, and yet the man's death had torn a hole in him that only now felt like it was starting to heal. _I'm not going to let you die again, Sirius, not for a long, long time._

At last, however, it was time for dinner. Molly Weasley had again tried to beat the world record for largest meal, and there was plenty for everyone to have thirds or fourths before the deserts paraded out. Knowing what he did about the overbearing harridan, he wouldn't have even looked at the food were it not for the neutralizing potions Hermione had whipped up before her vacation. He had a _Notice-Me-Not_-charmed case in Regulus's bedroom that held sixty vials; as each dose was good for twenty-four hours, he and Hermione would be quite safe from any potions the dumpy woman tried to slip them.

Ginny yawned, which set off a chain reaction with the others. "Time for bed, I think," Molly said, covering her own.

"Not just yet, Molly," Sirius said as he gently banished his plate to the sink and turned to Harry. "I know that you've had quite a day, but I must say I expected you to start asking about Voldemort by now."

Last time, he had puffed up in righteous indignation. Last time, he had been soothed by a few vague comments and sent to his room with a pat on the head. Last time, his lack of knowledge had gotten Sirius killed, him tortured, and five of his friends injured.

Last time, he hadn't been twenty-five years old.

So, instead of shouting like he had _last time_, he leaned back in his chair and lightly glared at the man. "I was waiting to see how long you would be foolish enough to try to keep me in the dark."

"Oh," Sirius said, startled. "I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

"It is. However, since you've brought it up, I do have questions I would like answers to."

"Hang on now!" George cried.

Fred was quick to join his twin. "How come Harry gets his questions answered?"

"We've been trying to get stuff out of you for months, but you haven't said a stinking thing!"

"That's your parents' decision," Sirius replied calmly. "Harry, on the other hand, is _my_ responsibility, so —"

Molly's face took on an angry cast, either the look of a lioness defending a cub or a hyena growling at the creature that stole her prey. "It's not up to you to decide what's good for him!"

"As his godfather, I believe it _is_, in fact, up to me to decide that," Sirius rejoined.

The Weasley children's heads were switching back and forth between the two adults, knowing that their mother did not like anyone challenging her authority. Lupin, though, was fixated entirely on Sirius, and remembering what the werewolf was like, Harry prepared himself to defend his godfather. _Merlin knows no one else will._

"Dumbledore said not to tell him anything more than he needs to know!"

"I don't intend to, but as he saw Voldemort come back, he has a right to know what's going on. In fact, he has more right than most —"

"Except he's not a member of the Order! He's just a child!" she screeched. "He's not _James_, Sirius!"

Harry's cold voice was an arctic wind sweeping through the kitchen. "Nor are you my mother, Molly Weasley, so stop acting like it. Every time you do, you insult Sirius, my parents, and me, and I will not stand for it a moment longer. _Sirius_ is the only person on this Earth who has the right to act like my parent, and that he realizes I should hear this shows a better understanding of my needs and desires than you claim to have."

Silence followed his statement as everyone looked at him like they had never seen him before. Her face reddened, so he fired his second salvo before she could open her mouth. "In addition, not only are you haranguing him over something that is, quite frankly, none of your business, you are doing so while a guest in his house. I find this arrogant and deplorable, an action I would expect from a Malfoy rather than a Weasley."

"Harry, I would appreciate it if you would not speak so disrespectfully to my wife," Arthur said, trying and failing to be stern.

"And I would appreciate it if she would not speak so disrespectfully to my godfather," he returned dismissively. "As my tone is predicated on hers, _she_ is the one you should seek to discipline."

Lupin's quiet cough broke the tense stalemate. "Getting back to our original topic, it is probably better that Harry gets some of the facts — only some, Sirius, enough to understand the general picture — from us, rather than third-hand from… others." Harry cut his eyes to the twins, who looked back at him with faces of dubious innocence. They had not told him about the Extendable Ears yet, so he knew they were wondering how he knew they knew. _And now I sound like Luna._

Sirius and Harry ignored the woman's protests. "You know I'm going to find out one way or another," he said, and his godfather nodded.

"_Fine_," Molly snapped. "I can see when people are going to do what they want, regardless of what's good for them. Ginny, Ron, Fred, George, I want you out of this kitchen, now."

"We're of age!" the twins shouted.

Molly turned to them, and it didn't take much effort for Harry to imagine smoke streaming from her nostrils. "I said NOW!" Knowing when they were out of their league, the two previously proud seventeen year olds scurried away.

"Er, Harry'll tell me everything you say, mum," Ron said weakly, not wanting to face his mother's fury, then he turned to Harry. "Won't you?"

Recalling the rare letters Ron had sent him, written to tantalize rather than share anything, he carefully kept his face blank. "I'll give you the same amount of information you gave me this summer; namely, none." He lost the battle to his emotions and grinned wickedly at his former friend's dumbfounded expression. "Payback's a bitch, isn't it?" _And just think, this is only a __**minuscule**__ bit of interest on what I owe you._

The red head glared but immediately winced as his hands dived to his crotch. Apparently knowing that arguing while his clothes soaked in his own urine wouldn't get him anywhere, he quickly retreated.

Ginny saw that she couldn't succeed where her brothers had failed and also chose a tactical withdrawal.

Lupin shut and locked the kitchen door, and once the room was relatively secure, Sirius spoke. "Okay, Harry, what do you want to know?"

"All sorts of things," he commented wryly, "but let's start with what the noseless one's been doing after he failed to kill me, _again_."

"He's laying low at the moment," Sirius said with a grin at his irreverent attitude. "His comeback didn't go quite how he wanted it to. With you escaping to warn Dumbledore, it's too dangerous for him to move openly."

"So he's hiding like the snakes he so admires? Can't say that isn't his style."

Lupin was the next to speak. "Don't be too overconfident. He isn't _just_ hiding; he's also planning and marshaling his forces. Death Eaters are just the beginning. Vampires, werewolves, giants, Dementors; Dark creatures of all forms marched under his banner in the last war. He certainly didn't come close to toppling the Ministry with only a dozen wizards."

_Actually, he didn't even need that many Death Eaters in the second and third wars; he killed Scrimgeour in '97 and immediately took over, and just showing up was enough in '02. It's not like it's __**hard**__ to conquer a country full of sheep._ Harry glanced at their somber faces and mentally sighed; he wasn't getting any new information compared to the last time he had questioned them, but revealing knowledge he had no way to learn wouldn't help him any. He had a role to play tonight if he wished to keep their suspicion off him tomorrow. "And is this _'Order of the Phoenix'_ forming its own army to meet them?"

"Not… exactly," Tonks said hesitantly. He smiled gently at her, and she relaxed; his uncharacteristic behavior must have unnerved her after Sirius told her all he knew about his godson. "You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back, Harry. Well, he's sticking to that position, absolutely refuses to believe it's happened."

He shook his head sadly. "Let me guess, the gleam of Malfoy gold is blinding him to anything else?"

"Probably," Arthur replied, anger clear in his voice, "though we haven't seen it ourselves. Of course, his fear of Dumbledore hasn't helped any. He thinks Dumbledore wants to take his place as Minister."

"The same Dumbledore who turned down the position before? The same Dumbledore that he constantly pestered for advice? If Dumbledore wanted the job, he could just _ask_ for it and be sworn in the same day."

The other adults nodded their heads in response, so he sighed and moved on while moving Fudge up his list of princes he and the girls would make paupers. He had forgotten just how small-minded the Minister was. "What is Voldemort doing besides gathering a menagerie? Surely he wouldn't lower himself to cajoling the Dark creatures himself."

"Well…" Sirius and Lupin looked at each other, then his godfather continued, "he's after something, something he can only get by stealth."

Knowing they were hinting at the Prophecy, he continued to look at them expectantly. "You don't think you can say something that vague without explaining more fully, do you?"

Sirius opened his mouth to say more when Molly cut him off. "That's enough. He has plenty of information; any more and you might as well induct him into the Order straightaway." Harry ignored her in favor of staring at Sirius, who had started to squirm nervously.

"She has a point, Sirius." Lupin turned to him. "It's not that we think you're not capable, you understand; it's that there are dangers you don't understand, _can't_ understand. There's a reason the Order is comprised solely of overage wizards." Still he stared at Sirius.

Sirius half-shrugged. "They're probably right, Harry. You're starting your OWL year; you'll have enough to worry on without adding something you can do nothing about."

"If you insist," he said as he stood, though his godfather grimaced at the disapproval in his voice. "However, I will leave you with something to mull over." He looked over each of them, curiosity obvious on their faces. "I may be underage, but I have had to fight Voldemort directly three times, just as many as my parents did when they were members in this organization. Thinking that still being in school will deter him from trying again is foolish, a naive and misguided belief that would have seen me _dead_ before I finished my first year." Everyone flinched, and he smiled thinly, mirth absent from his face. "Consider that the next time you start to tell me I'm _'too young'_ to know something."

He unlocked and walked through the kitchen door, leaving nothing but silence in his wake.

* * *

**The meeting between Harry and Dawlish didn't go exactly as he described it, not that Dawlish will _remember_ what really happened. It's not really important, but Madam Bones changed the color of Dawlish's cloak to let the Aurors at the holding cells know to leave him unconscious until she returned.**

**Do you want to know something terrible? I don't have to distort Molly's personality to make her an utter bitch; nearly all of her dialogue with Sirius is straight from book 5.**

* * *

**I've had some people bring up the issue of why Harry would leave his wand at the Dursleys' house. I freely admit it was a bit of handwaving on my part, but I can also see it happening on rare occasions; it's like driving around town all day running errands, than going home and realizing you left your driver's license on the counter. You smack your head, thinking "How dumb can I be?", but it's generally not a problem unless the cops pull you over. Harry's past couple of weeks have been very calm and boring, so he hasn't needed his wand while in Surrey; hence, he forgot it once, which wouldn't be too bad if the Dementors hadn't attacked.**

**Joe Lawyer:** I think the main reason for the enormous difference between the values we calculated was the price of gold we chose; I used the price from June 1995, which my research showed to be about $390 per Troy ounce. That said, I changed the value in the chapter to 25,000 Galleons. The trio were _supposed_ to get 75% of the gold's value, but I goofed entering the numbers into my calculator the first time. I'm glad you appreciate the myriad of problems that crop up when time traveling; that aspect has always been my biggest pet peeve in these type of stories.

**Faraway-R:** That's basically how Gringotts works; in canon, Molly did Harry's shopping for him several times, and all she needed was his vault key. Oh, I knew that's why you brought up the Lovegood Grimoire, and I got quite the chuckle out of it.

**apAiden:** As you saw, with Madam Bones on the case, there won't be a trial. The girls were too occupied with planning the heists to remember a one-time incident that they hadn't thought about in ten years. I'd say the fire-pits came first but were totally unrelated to the development of landmines; magical or not, the average guy still loves explosions.

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** I hope _no one_ saw that coming; it may have been my plan for the Dursleys since chapter 1, but I made sure I wasn't dropping any hints. Fudge would be happy, but Harry has the stern and incorruptible Madam Bones on his side now. They haven't been destroying the manors because they see little need to; the Death Eaters, should they return, will find they have completely (and I mean _completely_) empty houses and no resources to fill them. Instead of wasting time conjuring or transfiguring, the arrogant Purebloods be more likely to hole up with another DE pal, concentrating their forces into a single, vulnerable location. I suppose the trio could decide to do that to one if they found something particularly heinous… And my muse ambushes me again.

**Reviewer of the West:** No, it wasn't subtle! They haven't been in the timestream long enough for truly massive changes to have happened yet, so they know Voldie is chilling out with the Malfoys and nowhere close to Little Hangleton. They broke into the cage just fine, but they needed the goblins to break the enchantments (quite different from wards) and melt the gold down. They will visit other countries eventually, France at the very least, but I won't show them on every visit to fence their goods.

**Silently Watches out.**


	17. Gaudy Jewelry

**Disclaimer:** When destroying the Locket, did Harry actually trust Ron with a sword? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 17  
****Gaudy Jewelry**

Harry hadn't even stepped onto the second floor landing when a red-haired weasel moved in front of him. "How could you do that?!" Ron shouted. "You're not supposed to keep secrets from your best mate!"

"Oh? You mean like how you kept secrets from me this summer?" He decided not to inform the boy that his real _'best mates'_ were the two women who shared his crazy life; he had enough issues to handle without prolonging the shouting match and memory charming the little prick. "Perhaps if you had been a better mate, I'd be willing to tell you."

Ron couldn't stand his dismissive tone and came closer, trying to use his greater height as an intimidation tactic; too bad it wouldn't work. "Back off, Ron. I'm not in the mood for your stupidity right now."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. The ginger flushed up to his ears, and the sudden acrid smell told him the brat was again thinking ill of him. "I'm not the stupid one, you bloody glory-hound! If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even be here!" He quirked an eyebrow, and Ron continued, "Who was it who got passed the chess set our first year? Who was it who got us to school when we couldn't get onto Platform 9¾? Who was it who found out Sirius was innocent? Who was it who warned you about the dragons last year? That was all me! Without me, you're just a whiny berk with a scar!"

"I don't have time for this nonsense." Releasing his acacia wand from the sticking charm holding it to his right forearm, Harry petrified his former friend, one who was showing his true colors much earlier now than he had before. "You are just as delusional as your sister, but instead of thinking you destined to bag the 'Boy-Who-Lived', you believe you're a far greater wizard than you are. I could spend the next several hours explaining why you're nothing but a follower, but I won't. Instead, all I'll say is _Obliviate_."

He immediately sent another spell, this one a compulsion. "Go back to your room and dream. Dream of being no one, having nobody know you as anything more than your older brothers' less capable sibling. Dream of being stuck at the bottom of the social ladder, eternally jealous of those at the top. Dream of having a life dominated by your insecurities and jealousy. Dream, Ronald Weasley, and when you wake, know that you are living your nightmare." A flick of his wand removed the petrification. The boy's eyes lightly glazed from the magical manipulation, Ron stumbled back to the his room and shut the door. Not a minute later, the chainsaw grind of his snores echoed in the hall.

_I have to say, if there's one bad thing about the Mind Arts, it's that they make it so blasted __**easy**__ to take revenge without anyone knowing_, Harry thought to himself. He had no need to worry about the boy's reaction to his manipulations in the morning; the memory charm took a minute or so to dissipate, preventing Ron from remembering who had cast it on him, or even that it he had been under one at all.

He finally locked himself in Regulus's room and flopped onto the bed. _Honestly, should we be treating him quite this badly? After all, when the girls and I look at him, we don't see Ron Weasley, idiot teenager; we see Ron Weasley, Death Eater and traitor extraordinaire. Yes, we know he's a false companion, one that we cannot trust in the slightest, but has he done anything to deserve being considered an enemy combatant?_ They were punishing the red-head for a crime that had occurred eight years in the future and now had no chance of happening again. Was their retaliation too extreme?

_Then again, Ginny revealed under Veritaserum that she had been part of the plan to trap me in my 'prophesied role' as a martyr since my sixth year and thought Ron had been involved even earlier than that. Was he, though, and if so, how early? If it was before now, he deserves everything he gets, but if it's after, we need to tone down our responses._ He turned over to stare at the ceiling._ No use worrying about it now. I can check later, once I'm sure everyone else is asleep_.

* * *

As the grandfather clock in the sitting room chimed two, a shrouded form slipped down the staircase. Harry's steps were silent due to the charm he had placed on them. He paused at the landing below, mentally flipping a coin about which stop he should make first, then turned and entered the bedroom from which he could hear the awful din coming.

Ron was lying on his back, legs splayed out and wrapped in the sheets at his feet. Casting a silencing charm on the ginger to preserve his hearing and sanity, Harry crept closer and aimed his wand at the figure. "_Legilimens_."

Compulsion charms had an interesting effect on legilimency. Memories relating to the compulsion, in this case Ron being socially invisible, flashed before him while others slowly slid along; navigating Ron's mind was like switching back and forth between a riptide and a pool full of treacle. He mentally pushed through instances of Ron jealously wishing to be the center of attention or exaggerating his own actions to a crowd and fell into a different memory.

"_Bloody Potter!" Ron raged in the silence of a disused classroom. "Can't stand letting anyone else having a chance at fame! No, he has to hog it all. You'd think he would have told his best mate how to get past Dumbledore's Age Line, but he kept it secret. Well, Dumbledore can forget his sodding plan. I'm not going to have anything more to do with the blighter!"_

Harry pulled himself out of the memory; obviously he had no need to feel guilty for anything he would do to the selfish boy. Dumbledore was in many ways just as much of an enemy as Voldemort. _Still, how early did he start steering Ron's actions?_ He had never asked in the original timeline, too angry with the Weasleys' betrayal to think calmly when he discovered the truth, so he continued poking around. Several minutes later, he finally fished out the pertinent memory.

_Ron stumbled down the Burrow's stairs in search of brekkers, only to be surprised by Albus Dumbledore calmly sipping tea at the table. "Professor! What are you doing here?"_

"_Ah, Ronald, just the person I hoped to see. Come, sit down." Ron slid into a chair, awed that the great Champion of the Light would call him by name. "How has your summer been so far?"_

"_Great, sir."_

"_Excellent," Dumbledore said with a smile. "Out of curiosity, have you been in touch with Harry recently?"_

_Ron scowled at the reminder of the friend that dropped him as soon as summer started. "No, that prat thinks he's too important to write to me now."_

"_I was afraid of that. He doesn't understand how good a friend you are."_

_He perked up. "Yeah! That's exactly right!"_

"_No matter what he believes, you and I know that you are the best friend he could possibly have. I saw how you kept him from spending all his time revising with Ms. Granger this past year." Dumbledore chuckled at his look of panic. "Oh, don't worry, Ronald. There is much more to school than just studying, a lesson I'm proud to see you've learned. Besides, Harry doesn't need to live in the library; the Boy-Who-Lived should be a brave Gryffindor, not a Ravenclaw bookworm."_

"_That's what I've been telling him! We have six more years of school. It's not like we have to learn everything **right now**."_

_Dumbledore grinned at him. "If classes were in session, I'd award you points. Alas, I must take my leave, but I wonder if you could do me a favor?"_

"_Sure," Ron replied. "What do you need me to do?"_

"_Just continue doing what you have been. Keep Harry at your sensible pace rather than letting Ms. Granger pull him ahead, and prevent those from… untrustworthy families from influencing him. In fact, it might be for the best if Harry doesn't make any more friendships right now, just in case. If you succeed, I **might** have a favor or two I can call in from my old friend Ragmar Dorkins."_

_Ron gasped. "You're friends with the Cannons' manager?"_

"_In a matter of speaking," Dumbledore replied as he stood and walked to the floo. "Just remember what I told you, Ronald."_

Harry seethed as he pulled out of the traitor's mind. _He sold me out for a __**Quidditch team!**__ That spineless, lazy, bottom-feeding, back-stabbing, two-faced bastard!_ He paced silently about the room, torn between storming out and shredding the ginger into tiny pieces. _Well, at least I know that Ron hopped into Dumbledore's pocket after first year. He then spent the next __**five bloody years**__ doing everything he could to make me just as much an idiot as him, an idiot who would have been child's play for Voldemort to kill._

He snorted as a thought sprang to the front of his mind. "Love isn't the _'power the Dark Lord knows not'_," he muttered facetiously, "luck is."

An unholy gleam entered his eyes as he glanced back at the sleeping boy. "Luck… that's all that would have separated us should you have been more successful. Let's increase that difference, shall we?" He flicked his wand in harsh movements as he recited an old Polish incantation he had run across in the Black library once; he had been feeling particularly vindictive that day and wanted a spell to cause utter chaos in the ranks of the people flocking to Voldemort. He hadn't wanted to kill them — the volunteers were spineless, not evil — so instead he made them regret their actions another way.

Chuckling, he finished the spell and watched a mud-brown jet of light hit Ron. "I don't know why I didn't think of using this on the Dursleys; the Dire Misfortune Curse is so much fun to watch in action. Nighty-night, ickle Ronniekins." He slipped out and continued to his original destination.

The drawing room was an incredibly gloomy place, with velvet curtains that buzzed lightly from the doxies sleeping behind them and cabinets filled with a number of Dark artifacts. One in particular caught his eye: a heavy gold locket bearing glittering green gems arranged to resemble the letter 'S'. He carefully opened the glass doors and levitated the Horcrux to a table in front of the couch.

A raspy voice broke his concentration. "What is Master's nasty half-blood brat doing poking his nose around so late? Mistress would be beside herself if she saw, oh poor Kreacher, blood-traitors and thieves and werewolves and scum —"

"Enough, Kreacher," Harry snapped. The old elf had died in the Battle of Hogwarts, and it had been so long ago that he had forgotten what a little monster Kreacher was. "Come here; there's something I think you'll want to see."

"What does the half-blood think will interest Kreacher, some foolish Muggle toy no doubt, oh Mistress would be so disappointed, the noble house of Black holding Muggle trash…" Kreacher finally stepped closer, and his eyes widened. "Master Regulus's locket!"

"Yes, the Locket. Regulus went through a lot of trouble to claim this, didn't he? Stealing it from Voldemort, dying for it; it would be a shame to leave his final wish unfulfilled."

Kreacher glared at him with a rheumy eye. "Nasty boy shouldn't know of Master Regulus's orders, no he shouldn't, how does he know since Kreacher didn't tell him…"

"Regulus told me," Harry lied. _I really need to not let my mouth get in front of my head._ "He spoke to me from behind the Veil, said the Locket needed to be destroyed for Voldemort to die. Then he told me where to find it and how to get rid of it. He was quite disappointed that it still exists after all this time."

"Kreacher tried!" the elf wailed, and Harry quickly cast a silencing charm around them. It would not do for everyone in the house to hear them when the original plan called for discretion. "Powerful magic Kreacher tried, but nothing would work, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to open it, but Kreacher could not —"

"Of course you couldn't," he interrupted, "you don't speak Parseltongue. Fortunately, _I_ do. Now, do you want to watch Regulus's work be completed?"

Kreacher said nothing but nodded, and so Harry turned his attention back to the Locket. "_Open_."

The golden doors opened with a quiet click, and dark eyes stared from the glass windows. _"I have seen your heart,"_ a soft, dangerous voice hissed, _"and it is mine."_

"Sorry, Tom, but my heart belongs to others. _Avada Kedavra_." Sickly green hit the Locket, and the glass shattered with a loud screech. He wasn't going to give one of the world's best manipulators a change to play any mind-games.

Kreacher crept closer and nudged the defunct jewelry with one gnarled finger. "Master Regulus is happy now."

"I'm sure he is. Here, take this with you," Harry said as he draped the locket's chain around Kreacher's neck. "Regulus would have wanted you to have it. Just make sure you keep it hidden from everyone else, or they'll try to take it."

"Yes, Kreacher will keep it secret, keep it safe. Master's brat is not so bad for a nasty half-blood."

"Just… go away."

* * *

By the time Harry returned to his room, the full impact had hit him. _The diary, scar, diadem, ring, chalice, and locket are gone, and Nagini and Voldemort himself are pretty much a two-for-one-special._ He grinned darkly. _Be afraid, Tommy-boy; your 'flight from death' is quickly coming to a very sticky end._

Reaching into his trunk, he pulled out a small box he had charmed unbreakable early that morning and opened it to reveal his mirror earring. Luna and Hermione were nine and ten hours ahead, respectively, so they were both likely taking a break from their days' activities to eat right about now. "Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood."

There was no immediate response, but this didn't worry him; both had informed him they would have their mirrors with them at all times. Finally, Hermione's voice sounded from the glass. _"Yes?"_

"_Hermione?"_ Luna asked before he could greet her. _"Why did you call me?"_

"_Luna? I didn't call you; did you call me?"_

"_No, I'm certain you called me. **My** earring was in my pocket, though I couldn't answer until I was away from the Snorkack den. Maybe you said my name accidentally?"_

"_I wasn't even talking about you earlier. Could you have been thinking out loud about me?"_

"_Hermione Jane Granger! I'm not going to just blurt out my sexual fantasies about you when my father's present; he has enough trouble finding a girlfriend of his own without being jealous of his daughter's."_

"Too much information, Luna," Harry said, smiling at their stereo surprised salutations. "How are your trips going?"

"_Excellent. Daddy and I think we've finally stumbled upon a den, and now it's just a waiting game. With the onions and cabbages we set out, I doubt it'll take much longer."_

"_My trip has so far been less… eccentric,"_ Hermione replied, and Harry rolled his eyes. Some households refused to discuss politics, others avoided religious debates, but theirs stayed away from the topic of magizoology. It just wasn't worth the effort trying to keep the girls from becoming far too passionate about their opinions. _"Melbourne is our last stop, so we'll be coming home in the next few days. What about you; you haven't been lonely, have you?"_

"Not at all; I've had a veritable line of girls after me since you two left. In fact, I had a pair try to snog me just last night." At her growl, he laughed and continued, "Don't worry, I don't do Dementors on sheer principle."

"_Dementors? Oh, bugger! Are you okay? Obviously you are, or you wouldn't be talking to us. Merlin, that means we have to get you ready for your trial again. If you look in the library in… in… Sirius's house, there's a book on magical law published in 1927 —"_

"Hermione."

"— _and yes, I know it's old, but the relevant portions of the Statute of Secrecy and the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery haven't changed since 1904 —"_

"Hermione."

"— _anyway, make sure to memorize the citation for the self-defense clause. It should make a good impression on the Wizengamot as a whole if you can rebuttal Fudge's claims with a detailed knowledge of the law rather than just a vague idea —"_

"HERMIONE!"

"_What?! I'm trying to help you, Harry!"_

"I know, and I appreciate it," he continued more gently, "but it's completely unnecessary. There isn't going to be a trial."

"_Why not?"_

"Because I didn't fight them off; I just got myself out of there. There was still magic recorded because I had to collect the last of my things, but Amelia Bones questioned me this morning and cleared me of any wrongdoing. I think she was more concerned with a pair of rogue Dementors and covering up a trio of Kissed Muggles."

"_You left the Dursleys to the Dementors?"_ Luna asked. _"Are you sure there was any attack at all? I'd have expected the five of them to recognize each other as kindred spirits."_

"They weren't soul-sucking demons, love, just cruel, small-minded, self-absorbed bigots. And yes, Bones confirmed it when I spoke with her. I'm now safely ensconced in London with our least favorite traitor, fangirl, werewolf, house elf, and housewife."

"_Poor Harry,"_ Hermione commented dryly, _"locked up with your greatest admirer. Just make sure you don't leave your pants around for her to steal. I caught her sleep-talking about doing so and building a shrine around them once when we were staying at the Burrow."_

He shuddered, more than a little tempted to memory charm that comment away. "_Thank you_ for that wonderful image. I'm sure to have an easier rest knowing Ginny wants to root through my dirty underthings. Why didn't you mention this to me earlier?"

"_I figured it was just a dream, not something she'd actually plan to do; you can't control what your mind throws about when you're asleep, after all,"_ she murmured sheepishly. _"I know, I know, I __**should**__ have recognized just how obsessed she was from that instance alone, but I thought she was my friend and ignored it. By the time I realized the scope of the problem, you were already chasing other skirts —"_

"_Ours!"_ Luna chirped.

"_Yes, ours — and so it just never came up. Are you taking the neutralizers I made?"_

"No, I'm using them to brighten up the place," he retorted. "You wouldn't believe how well they complement faded floral wallpaper."

Hermione harrumphed. _"I understand you're upset with me, but there's no reason to be rude. If you want to be dosed by one of Molly's love potions, go right ahead. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't arrive to see you having your wicked way with Ginny in the front hall."_

"_Aaand_ moving on before I feel any more nauseous. In a display of cross-timestream karma, Ron _may_ have been cursed tonight."

"_Oh? And just what did you… I'm sorry, __**karma**__… curse him with?"_ the blonde asked. _"You're only this maliciously gleeful when you've done something truly inspired."_

"Well, I found out that Dumbledore recruited Ron to not only stop me from learning any information he didn't approve of, but also to keep me from having 'untrustworthy' friends. I figured, since he worked so hard to destroy any social standing my own timidity hadn't ruined and turn me into a bumbling buffoon, I'd return the favor, so I hit him with the Dire Misfortune Curse."

"_My goodness, Harry; that spell's just plain evil. Wasn't the last man you used that on almost mauled by the geese he raised?"_

He chuckled at Hermione's question. Dire Misfortune was the closest thing there was to a Dark pranking spell, but it was still Dark. "Yes, he was, but remember that he didn't die. That's what I love most about it; the curse can't kill you, not that you won't pray it will. As long as we remember to reapply it every two weeks, we'll have an unrelenting source of entertainment."

"_While I love the thought of that ginger bastard getting his due, I'm more concerned about the Locket,"_ Luna said. _"Did you find it?"_

"Found it, dealt with it, gave it to Kreacher. Six Horcruces down, one to go, and then it's just Voldemort himself. I'd call this a summer a success."

"_That it was. Going back to a previous topic, why didn't we remember the Dementor attack? That's something we should have prepared for."_

"_We didn't remember because it happened a decade ago, Hermione. Still, you raise a valid point; what else happened this year that we need to pay attention to?"_

"Well, we have the toad torturing us, the Ministry and Prophet smearing my name, teaching the D.A., though I refuse to deal with that headache again… that's all I can think of off the top of my head."

"_While I understand that the D.A. is a sore spot for you, and for good reason, it **was** the only way our year-mates passed their OWLs —"_

"Which isn't my responsibility!" He shook his head, surprised at just how angry he still was with the group as a whole. He taught them for the explicit purpose of defending themselves, but when Voldemort returned the second time, so many of them did nothing and just accepted his rule. Some, like Ron and Seamus, even _joined_ him! A few were trustworthy — Neville and the Creevey brothers were wonderful examples of this — but they weren't enough to make a difference in his decision.

The problem, he knew, was that the Wizarding World was full of cowards. Each member of their society was handed a deadly weapon at eleven and required to learn how to defend themselves with it. Even with Voldemort's jinx on Hogwarts's Defense Against the Dark Arts position, there was an incredible library available to the students and books at Flourish and Blotts for those who couldn't attend the school or who wanted extra information. If that weren't enough, no one had to fight Voldemort's forces alone. Every time a ten-man squad of Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley, they were easily outnumbered ten, twenty, or even fifty to one; few shield charms were capable of stopping a dozen Reductors hitting at the same time, and _none_ could withstand thirty.

This meant that, prophecy or no, any half-trained mob had a chance to take Voldemort down. The Aurors should have done so with no problems whatsoever; the reason they didn't was that they were, quite frankly, incompetent. Fred and George had made a killing by selling their Shield Hats to the Ministry because the average DMLE investigator _couldn't even cast a _Protego_ shield._ Not even all the Aurors could, which was inexcusable.

Harry pulled himself from his wool-gathering and refocused on the conversation. "I am under no obligation to waste my time teaching Defense skills to those who would rather roll over and show their bellies than stand up for themselves. There are simply too many other things to do. The only way I would teach DADA again was if I was paid for it and given the same authority as any other professor. Unless that happens, I will leave the students' education in the oh-so-capable hands of Hogwarts's staff."

"_Harry…"_

"_Mione, he has a point. Restarting the D.A. is his decision, and if he decides not to do it, that's the end of it. Unless you were planning to lead them?"_

Hermione sighed. _"No, I've learned that teaching is not one of my strengths. So, no D.A… Nagini!"_

"What?"

"_Something else that happens this year is Nagini sneaking around the Ministry at Christmas. If we kill her, that will be the last Horcrux gone!"_

"Yes, that's true," he said. "It will also infuriate Voldemort and possibly let him know that someone's working to render him mortal. Unlike the other Horcruces, he keeps a close eye on her."

"_Not necessarily,"_ Luna countered. _"If we arrange things just so, he might think it was a random Ministry worker getting in a lucky strike. I'll think on it and get back to you on the Express."_ There was hushed muttering, then she continued, _"I need to go; it's almost time for the Snorkacks to come out! I love you, and I'll talk to you two later!"_

"_Her and her creatures. I have to go, too, but I should be arriving at… in London in a few days. Love you."_

"I love you, too. _Otium_." Returning his mirror to his trunk, he changed clothes and crawled into bed, mind racing in an attempt to remember everything important from the upcoming year. So much for a restful night's sleep.

* * *

**I can only remember one time in canon where a magical fight wasn't depicted as a bunch of one-on-one duels happening at the same time, and that's at the end of book 5.**

* * *

**Dorkchic:** Personally, I started disliking Molly in book 3, when she took the position of "Don't tell Harry, a veritable danger-magnet, that there's a mass murder after him! He might do something stupid like not sneak around so much." Unfortunately for Arthur, he truly did fall in love with her; in this case, the love potions — as much as I _despise_ them — did nothing more than act out on his feelings. When she and Ginny get the bright idea to "bring out" Harry's hidden affections for the mini-shrew, though…

**Wrin:** He really doesn't care about their opinions for a couple of reasons. First, he's not an abused teenager anymore; he's twenty-five, an accomplished warrior, and has been undergoing informal therapy with the girls for several years now. He is who he is, he likes who he is, and he's not going to change because a few people he doesn't trust have a problem with it. Second, and more important in my opinion, is that he's seen what trying to keep everyone happy does: it creates a war with the Muggles that winds up killing off most of the magical species in the world.

**meiscof:** My take on Lupin being in Gryffindor is because, like Ron, he's not loyal enough for Hufflepuff, not crafty enough for Slytherin, and not open-minded enough for Ravenclaw.

**magitech:** My take on Voldemort's "army" is that he has _some_ vampires, and _some_ werewolves, and _some_ giants, but by no means does he have entire species following him. He may have promised the vampires all the blood they could drink, and the werewolves (probably those with the same views as Greyback) the chance to turn any children they wanted.

**Silently Watches out.**


	18. Family Momentos

**Disclaimer:** Did Molly throw out the Blacks' (and therefore Sirius's) things that she thought were "Dark" without asking permission? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 18  
****Family Mementos**

Harry had just sat down to breakfast the next morning when he, along with the rest of the Weasleys, heard a series of loud thuds coming down the stairwell and ending with a soft, "Bloody hell. What else can go wrong today?"

"Ronald Weasley!" Molly yelled as she stormed towards the kitchen door. "What have I told you about using that sort of language?! I'll wash your mouth out with soap if you — Oh, Ronnie! What happened?!"

Ron staggered into the kitchen in obvious pain. His right hand was hanging limply from his arm, his shirt was covered in blood from his flattened nose, and he didn't appear to be able to put his full weight on his left leg. "Tonks, this is your fault. Your klutz curse got me!"

"Don't blame me for this! Metamorphs are always clumsy; our bodies are constantly shifting and throwing off our balance. Besides, last I checked, it wasn't contagious. You have my sympathies, though." The smile Tonks couldn't quite hide leeched all sincerity from her words.

While her son and the Auror were talking, Molly had cleaned Ron up and fixed his nose, and was now focused on his broken wrist. A few muttered words caused it to straighten with a sharp crack. "How did this happen, dearie?"

"I don't know. I fell flat on my face when I got out of bed, then the dresser slammed itself shut when I was getting my clothes out, and then something tripped me at the top of the stairs." He blindly reached for his utensils to eat breakfast, only to cry out as he squeezed the blade of his knife, cutting his hand. Apparently, Molly had laid a razor-sharp filet knife at his place by accident.

It was only thanks to his Occlumency that Harry didn't snort out loud, even if he was positively cackling on the inside. Much like malaclaw venom or Felix Felicis, the Dire Misfortune Curse somehow manipulated chance; in this case, the chance of almost anything bad happening was made a near certainty. As he had told Hermione the night before, a few days under the curse was enough that some people seriously prayed for death.

After Ron's remaining injuries were healed and the rest of the room had the opportunity to see him stab himself multiple times in the cheeks and lips with his fork as he ate, the dumpy matriarch shooed them into the drawing room. The velvet curtains that had been so quiet in the night now buzzed ominously, and it was to these that Molly directed their attention. "We're going to start cleaning this room today, starting with getting rid of the doxy infestation here. I expect us to be done in a few days if we don't slack off —"

"I'm sorry, what?" Harry asked, looking about the room. In the light of day, the filth really wasn't that bad, certainly less than what had been covering the Manor when he first saw it. "A few days? Most of what this room needs is some _Scourgify_ spells, maybe a _Reparo_ or two on the furniture. It shouldn't take five minutes."

"Harry, you, Ron, and Ginny aren't allowed to use magic during the summers, and I think Fred and George are too young to be doing so, too. Besides, a little honest work never hurt anybody."

"So instead of saving everyone a lot of time and effort, you're drafting us to do everything by hand. How… inefficient." That was not what he _wanted_ to say, but telling Molly he shouldn't have expected anything more thought out from a gormless, prejudiced, inbred harpy probably wasn't the best option at the moment.

She ignored him and pointed to a collection of spray bottles. "Now, everyone take a cloth and bottle of Doxycide and — ah, Sirius, you can join us."

"What?" Sirius asked, stopped mid-stride in the hallway.

She exited the room only to physically drag the still-skeletal man inside. "As I was saying, all of you grab a spray. It says here that doxies are poisonous, but I've brewed the recommended antidote in case anyone is bitten. Lockhart says —"

Harry's voice was incredulous as he interrupted again. "Could you repeat that? I could swear I heard you referencing Lockhart, of all people."

"Yes, I was," she said, showing him the copy of _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ she had been flipping through. "I don't see why that would be a problem."

"Let's see, maybe because it's _Lockhart?_ The same Lockhart who couldn't corral a bunch of pixies, even though Hermione, Ron, and I could as second years? The same Lockhart who Ron and I proved to be nothing more than a fraud with a penchant for memory charms? _That_ Lockhart?"

Molly huffed and glared at him. "Well, if you think you can do better…"

"I don't _think_ I can do better, I'm _sure_ I can. Sirius, could you conjure, oh, half a dozen snakes? Venomous, preferably, so they have some resistance to the doxies' bites."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Sirius asked, looking at him worriedly. "We don't have anything for snakebites."

"It'll be fine."

"If you're sure." He extended his arm, his hand gripping his wand by the shaft. "Conjuring was never my strong suit."

Harry took the wand gingerly, shocked at Sirius's offer. As Luna had explained to them on the Hunt, permitting another to use one's wand was an act of extreme trust. In the Pureblood world, such a thing wasn't often seen outside the Aurors, where trust between partners had to be absolute, or extremely close couples. It was actually Hermione loaning him her wand after his had been broken in Godric's Hollow that had first given Luna the idea for them to form a _ménage à trois_; she told them later that if she hadn't offered the suggestion and kept him to herself when the war was finished, she would have felt like a homewrecker.

He jabbed the wand at the floor and whispered, "_Serpensortia._" He ignored the gasps from his audience as the snakes raised their heads above his own and stared at him coldly, their hoods flared. _"Behind you are tasssty little flying creaturesss,"_ he said, Parseltongue slipping easily from his lips._ "Eat them. Eat them all."_ The cobras turned in unison to the velvet curtains.

A weak gust of wind brought the pests swarming from their nest. The snakes were having the time of their lives snagging the doxies from the air and swallowing them whole, still kicking and chittering. Noticing that his creations were beginning to be overwhelmed, he doubled their number and repeated his instructions. The crunch of the doxies' exoskeletons and the serpents' hisses of delight made for a morbid background noise, one that was turning all of the Weasleys a mite green.

He turned his attention to the rest of the room and fired spells at everything in sight. Before two minutes had passed since he conjured his little helpers, he scoured the walls free of dirt and wallpaper, cleaned and repaired the chairs, polished the glass of the cabinets, darned the curtains, and vanished the snakes with the doxies still inside. Smirking a bit, he returned Sirius's wand and asked, "Anything else?"

Molly scowled at him for stealing her thunder. "Well, now we can get started throwing out all the evil things in here." Her brood followed her as she crossed the room.

Sirius, however, patted his shoulder fondly. "Not bad, pup. Where'd you get so much practice with household charms?"

"Living with four other boys is far too much for my sense of acceptable cleanliness. I had to learn them just to keep from being driven barmy." His godfather shrugged and nodded at that, then joined the gingers, who had conjured sacks and were poised to wage war against the enemy bric-a-brac.

Idly curious if any of the trinkets could be useful for his ventures, he sidled over as well. One of the twins was the first to open the doors and reach in, but he immediately pulled his arm back and began flailing it about. It didn't take much to see why; a multi-legged silver instrument, something reminiscent of a spider if they ignored the sharp edges on the limbs, was perched on the boy's wrist and doggedly trying to climb up his arm. Not knowing what it was, Harry slapped the device off, right onto Sirius's face.

"Huh, I had forgotten all about this thing," the man said as he pulled it off. Unlike with the boy, it curled its legs under it and settled calmly on his palm.

"What is it?"

"This, Harry, is the Family Compass. It can point to anyone that it's been introduced to before, ignoring any wards or charms they're under, even the Fidelius."

He came closer, peering down at the contraption. "_Any_ ward? How would it do that? And what do you mean, _'introduced to'_?"

"Let me show you. _Obliviate_." Harry's eyebrows rose at Sirius's choice of spell; memory charms were only supposed to work on living things. This Compass, however, proved to be an exception as it scuttled up Sirius's bare forearm. It jabbed a pointy leg into the crook of his elbow and absorbed a few drops of the blood that welled up before returning to quiescence.

"It's blood magic, very Dark stuff. The little bit of blood it 'drank' ties it to me, preventing anything short of death from hiding me. My parents used it on my brother and I, as well as my cousins, when we were little in case we snuck out of the house or were kidnapped from Diagon Alley, which was actually less paranoid at the time than you'd think."

Harry glanced at all the other objects in the cabinets; if this device, which appeared so sinister at first, was truly benign, how many others were as well? He pointed to a enamel-plated music box in the corner. "Do you remember what that was for?"

"Oh, Merlin," Sirius whispered, dropping the Compass onto the shelf and pulling it out. "This is Reggie's music box. He had terrible insomnia, even as a kid, and the charm on this was just about the only way he could get to sleep. My father commissioned it when he was four, after Kreacher mentioned that he was only getting a couple of hours a night, and that was on the good days. He even took it with him to Hogwarts. My mother must have put it here after his death, which explains why it's right next to Aunt Elladora's favorite daggers."

"Are all of the things in here heirlooms?" he asked softly. Sirius nodded slowly, and he motioned for the Weasleys to leave the room; they didn't, of course, but he wasn't terribly surprised by that. "Maybe, instead of tossing everything into the rubbish out of hand, you should go through them and keep the pieces you consider most significant. Clearly you don't associate _all_ of them with bad memories."

Sirius gazed at him, a slight shine in his eyes and a fond smile playing on his lips. "You may look like James, but you're definitely Lily's son. You're right, I should sort through these. I'll probably still get rid of most of them, but…" He returned his attention to the music box, the rest of his sentence obvious. Harry shooed the Weasleys out, leaving him to reconcile with his past in peace.

* * *

"Harry, my boy, how are you today?"

Harry refrained from sighing out loud. _I was wondering how long it would take for him to seek me out._ He had been in Grimmauld Place for three days now, and in that time he had turned Molly's plans completely on their heads. A wonderful example was the library he was in at the moment; the harpy had been shocked when he convinced Sirius to leave most of the books where they were. Knowledge, he had insisted, was far too important to throw away unless a book could be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to contain nothing useful, interesting, or beneficial. After Sirius and Bill, the only 'adult' who was the least bit impartial, spent several hours skimming the collection, only eight books were consigned to the bin for being unrepentantly Dark; Harry had managed to replace them with surreptitiously conjured duplicates and sneak them to Winky for shelving in Potter Manor. As a side-benefit, doing that had earned him serious points with Kreacher.

Though he wasn't sure the title _'sneaky half-blood brat'_ was much of an improvement, to be honest.

He closed the book on warding he had been perusing before double-checking his Occlumency shields, not that he planned to need them. Last time, Dumbledore had been so wary of his connection to Voldemort that the old man went out of his way to avoid eye-contact. That was advantageous now; Harry's natural talent for Legilimency made his shields weaker than average, and even were they not, Dumbledore's vastly greater experience meant going head-to-head in the Mind Arts was a sure way to have his secrets exposed, something he was anxious to avoid. He would _not_ put his girls in danger if he could help it.

Turning in the old man's general direction, he kept his eyes from focusing on anything in particular. "Quite well, Professor. And you?"

"As well as can be expected. Remus told me about the Dursleys; you have my condolences."

"Thank you, I suppose."

"However," Dumbledore continued as if he hadn't spoken, "he also mentioned that you did not seem to care about their fate, that you were rather happy about it, in fact. I must confess that I am disappointed."

"Disappointed? Vernon and Petunia should never have been allowed within ten kilometers of a child, and Dudley has been a burgeoning thug from practically the day he was born. They got what they deserved in the end."

"You should always be able to forgive people, my boy. I have told you before, but we must strive to do what is right, not what is easy."

"Except ignoring everyone's crimes out of hand _isn't_ right; it's the epitome of easy. Forgiving those who honestly regret their actions and punishing those who see no reason to change, _that_ is right." Dumbledore reared back as if struck; had no one ever turned his own words against him before? If not, Harry really needed to find something he could justify for _'the Greater Good'_. Maybe it would be enough to give the old goat a heart attack.

"By that logic, what of your own actions? You are capable of casting a Patronus, one strong enough to frighten away dozens of Dementors, yet you let your family die. Does this not mean you should be punished?"

He took a deep breath to center himself. No matter how much he wanted to, starting a magical fight with Dumbledore was not in his best interests, especially not when everyone else in the house thought the manipulative bastard had hatched from a phoenix egg and shat rainbows and lemon drops. But _oh_, did he want to curse him. "First, as _I_ have told _you_ before, the Dursleys were never my family. Second, it was the summer, when we're not allowed to use magic. I wasn't going to paint an even larger target on my back when the Ministry is already doing everything they can to depict me as a dangerous lunatic. Third, and most important, my _relatives_ having their souls ripped out and eaten was punishment for how they treated me all my life. Holding them in Azkaban for fourteen years before being Kissed would have been better, but I'll take what I can get.

"Though I must say I'm surprised by the fact the Dementors were able to enter the house at all," he mused. "It's rather sad that you constantly shoved the blood wards in my face as a reason to go back to Surrey, only for them to fail when they were actually needed."

"The blood wards couldn't protect you from _everything_. They were meant to keep you safe from Voldemort."

Harry stared incredulously at him. "You're telling me that you kept me in that hellhole for protection against a disembodied spirit? Surely there is some other ward that could have done the same thing, one that could have been placed over a magical home."

"While you were protected from a direct attack from him, it also kept Death Eaters away from you. No one with the Dark Mark could cross the threshold of the property."

"That's it?" he asked. "That's the limit of your protection? What was stopping someone from cursing me while I was at school? Or from a distance when I spent all summer working in the garden? Or sending someone under the _Imperius_ to enter the house and kidnap me or kill me? They wouldn't have the Dark Mark yet would be just as dangerous to my health. There was _nothing_ else? Un-bloody-believable. And that's just threats from _outside_ the house; there are many days I wonder if I wouldn't have been safer with the Death Eaters than in the hands of Vernon and Petunia."

Dumbledore frowned at him. "Surely they weren't that bad."

"They locked me in a cupboard for days on end without food if I did something as simple as show up Dudley in school or have an episode of accidental magic. They worked me like a slave. They beat me, belittled me, tried their best to utterly break me. Actual prison inmates are treated better than I was. Yes, they were _'that bad'_." Harry's voice was cold and hard, a sign of how far beyond mere anger he was. "And for the record, I do not appreciate being called a liar by someone who has no knowledge or understanding of the subjects being discussed. _I_ am the one who had to live with the Dursleys, not you; I don't know that you ever even met them.

"Now, is there something else, or were you here solely to chastise me for celebrating my freedom from the worst sort of Muggles imaginable?"

"Yes, actually. Professor Snape has mentioned that you were incredibly rude to him yesterday. He was upset, understandably, but he said if you would apologize —"

"No."

"I'm sorry?"

"You should be." Harry glared at one of the golden stars on Dumbledore's garishly red robes. "My 'rudeness' was simply ignoring his habitual insults towards my father. Snape —"

"Professor Snape, Harry."

"_Snape_ is simply a bully who's angry that his favorite target isn't fun anymore. He can either get over it or not; I don't particularly care." _Because when he inevitably crosses the line, I'll take care of him __**personally**__. That bastard owes my father and now me his life, and before I'm done with Hogwarts, I'm going to call his debt in._

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "You really must let this grudge go; it is very immature. And you should at least be respectful to your teachers."

"And you'll notice I'm not mimicking Sirius and calling Snape _'Snivellus'_. That's the most respect he's going to get from me." He let out a short, bitter laugh as realization struck him. "Snape really can do no wrong in your eyes, can he? Just because he's a 'reformed' Death Eater, you'll pander to his every whim like a father indulging his spoiled brat. Is becoming a murderer and then crawling to you for absolution the only way to gain your trust? Must I start lashing out at all the students who irritate me for you to listen to a word I say? If so, tell me; I already have a list of who I would hurt first, and the _'strutting, arrogant bully'_ Draco Malfoy is right at the top. That would just increase the similarities between Snape and myself, right?"

Dumbledore had paled as he spoke, and now the old man whispered, "Harry, have you truly become so Dark?"

"No," he replied, though this was a matter of opinion. He, Hermione, and Luna were not murdering children, torturing innocents, or trying to rule the world; all they sought was justice and a little profit. He knew the headmaster would disagree. According to the old man, taking vengeance of any kind was 'Dark', as was wielding lethal magic, stealing from the rich, and generally not obeying the infallible Albus Too Many Bloody Names Dumbledore. "I'm making a point. For the 'Leader of the Light' to trust a self-professed Dark wizard over those who never joined a terrorist group is… strange, to put it lightly. Of course, I don't trust spies in general. You can never know where their allegiance truly lies." Like Ron, for instance.

He picked his book back up. Though he had made valid points, he knew Dumbledore wouldn't listen; the manipulative man was too caught up in his grand scheme. According to the journals found after the war was over, Dumbledore saw only two possible resolutions should his plans bear fruit: the most likely was that he would defeat Voldemort after destroying his Horcruces and lock him up in Nurmengard next to Grindelwald while the Death Eaters miraculously saw the error of their ways and became productive members of society, but he still held hope that the psychopath himself could be convinced to give up his quest for destruction, retake the name Tom Riddle, and become the next Leader of the Light. Either way, Harry was of no importance, just a lamb to be slaughtered on the altar of prophecy.

This was why Dumbledore had never helped him whenever he was in danger in Hogwarts. Every time he faced Voldemort and came back alive, the old man hoped it would be the last so that Voldemort could be truly 'vanquished'. Even worse, somehow, was that it wasn't personal; his demise was just another box to be checked off a to-do list. Dumbledore's morals were all that kept him from doing the deed himself.

Harry thought his rage at the delusional bastard was _entirely_ justified.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Dumbledore came closer and peered at the text. "Warding? I did not realize you were interested in this branch of magic."

"Sirius told me about the wards on the house, so I got curious and decided to do a little digging. It's an intriguing and lucrative field from what I can find. The only thing I need to learn for it is runes, and I'll have a chance to do that once Voldemort's six feet under."

"I was under the impression you wished to be an Auror," Dumbledore suggested gently. Harry suspected it was due to the old man not wanting him to have any plans for after the war. Merlin forbid he survive and live a full and happy life; why, he might decide not to throw himself at Voldemort's feet and politely ask to be killed!

"It was just an idea I was tossing about last year, when I thought it was actually Moody teaching us. Besides, my life's bad enough with _one_ Dark wizard after me. I really don't want to have to deal with that for the rest of my life." The ding of the doorbell and Walburga Black's screech signified a new arrival. Harry returned the book to its shelf before heading to the door. "If that's all, Professor?"

Dumbledore reluctantly waved him on, and he left the room with a smile. Hermione was here.

* * *

**I honestly think Rowling forgot she was writing about witches and wizards when she had everyone cleaning Grimmauld Place. If the twins were "[whipping their] wands out for every tiny little thing", _they_ at least should have done the smart thing and spelled all the filth away, even if no one else had that idea.**

* * *

**magitech:** It'd be funny to watch, certainly, but the trio would first have to convince the Death Eaters that they aren't lying. I've always thought it strange in other stories where Harry revealed that information that bigoted Purebloods would immediately accept the words of a "filthy half-blood" against the master they think is pure.

**Paladeus:** The two biggest reasons Harry isn't checking the food are 1) he'd have to reveal that his wand doesn't have the Trace any longer, and 2) Molly would just say Kreacher must have added them to try to poison all of them, and as far as most of the other adults are concerned, that would be the end of it. The twins don't want to get on Harry's bad side, and Ginny isn't going to start an argument with her precious BWL. As I told someone else in a previous chapter, I use "Horcruces" because it's proper bad Latin.

**jadesabrexiv:** This isn't the end of Ron's suffering, and I honestly doubt he'll still be alive at the end of the story. I already have a good idea for Ginny, one that I've never seen in any other story I've read. It's very… Greek.

**Thephantomprince:** No, Harry and Remus are NOT on good terms. He abandoned Harry after his parents' deaths; even if the canon blood wards would prevent a Dark creature from crossing the threshold, there was no reason Harry shouldn't have received an owl from him as soon as he was at Hogwarts saying, "Hi, my name is Remus Lupin, and I'm one of your father's best friends. I doubt you remember me, but would you mind if we got to know each other?" In book three, discovering that Remus knew James Potter _at all_ was like pulling teeth, and it took a confrontation with a murderer to reveal that he was one of the Marauders. He disappears for the entirety of book four, and shows up only a couple of times in book five. THEN, and this is the kicker, his big scene in book seven is _trying to abandon his pregnant wife_. In terms of fickle friends, he is no better than Ron.

**Silently Watches out.**


	19. Trouble Afoot

**Happy New Year! This was not my favorite chapter; I think it's just because I want to get the trio together and back to Hogwarts already. Damn muse keeps giving me ideas…**

**Disclaimer:** Did anyone ever shut Walburga Black up? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 19  
****Trouble Afoot**

The time Harry chose to come down the stairs was just right to overhear the tail end of Hermione's and Molly's argument. "Now you look here, young lady, I will not let you go around dressed like some hussy! Go and change into something respectable, or you won't be welcome in this house!"

"_You_ look _here_, Molly Weasley," Hermione said, her voice loud enough to be heard even over Walburga's vitriol. "I already have a mother, and I am certainly not searching for a replacement. _Never_ presume to act like I am your child; you have enough trouble with your own brood without begging for more! I will wear what I want with or without your approval, so do all of us a favor and keep your unsolicited opinions to yourself. And don't think you can threaten to throw me out. This is _Sirius's_ house, not yours. If this is how you've been acting the entire time you've been his guest, I'm not certain how he's kept from tossing you right out the door!"

"My personal theory is that Azkaban somehow gave him the patience of a saint," he said as he stepped into the hall. "Not sure it makes up for twelve years of illegal incarceration, but it's a start."

He took a look at what had set Molly off only to sigh in disappointment. The short blouse and tight jeans were nothing that would get a second glance in the Muggle world, but for the old-fashioned magicals, the thin strip of bronzed belly on display was the height of indecency. "Bloody Victorians."

Hermione smirked at his comment. Turning to the stairwell, she called, "Will someone shut that racket off?!"

"Very polite. First time she comes into my house, and she's already making demands. I'm telling you, Moony, kids these days have no respect!" A moment later the screeching stopped, and Sirius became visible. "Hey there, Hermione. Now I see how he fell for your wicked charms." A lecherous grin accompanied his wolf-whistle.

"Oi, hairball, enough of that. She's way too young for you." Shaking his head at his godfather's antics — he had seen Sirius 'flirting' with Tonks enough to figure out that the dog only acted like a dirty old man for personal amusement — he motioned towards the unruly painting. "Why don't you just silence her?"

"We've already tried that, trust me. She made sure her portrait was protected from any spells we might want to put on her. If she hadn't, I'd have gotten rid of her long ago."

Hermione nibbled on her lip as she thought. "Assuming you don't want to risk triggering any defenses she may have placed before she died by removing it, have you tried silencing the area around her? That wouldn't be casting magic on it directly, after all."

Sirius stared at her in awe. Not saying a word, he walked back to his mother's painting and followed Hermione's suggestion, then tested it by kicking a portion of the frame that was peeking from behind the drapes. The raggedy curtains flared open once more, but while they could all see Walburga's mouth moving and spittle flying around, there was no sound. "Not bad."

"Sirius!" Molly screamed. From the volume, she either hadn't noticed that the portrait was quiet or didn't care. Harry personally suspected it was the latter. "Since everyone _insists_ you take charge of what goes on in this house, tell her to put on some proper clothes."

The Animagus looked Hermione over once again, then shrugged. "I know nothing about modern Muggle fashion. Is this considered decent?"

"It wouldn't be out of place, I don't think," Harry said.

"In some places, it would even be overly modest," added the brunette. "I normally wear clothes like this during the summers."

The Weasley matriarch purpled in rage, eerily reminiscent of the late Vernon Dursley. "You have never worn anything so… so… _unseemly_ any time I saw you!"

"Well, of course you haven't," Hermione replied airily. "When I visited the Burrow, I dressed like an old maid so as to not offend your delicate sensibilities."

"Sirius, I'll just show Mione to her room." Harry didn't know how much more Molly could take before she burst an aneurism, and it simply wouldn't do for the harpy to miss what he had planned for her.

They slipped up the stairs and past Walburga at the same time that Molly resumed her screeching. After they entered Hermione's and Ginny's room from the previous timeline, she flicked her wand, locking the door and preventing any eavesdropping. "Harry, you know that I normally abhor killing, right?"

He nodded, so she continued, "In fact, except when it came to masked Death Eaters, I fought to debilitate, remember?"

"I do. Luna and I were relieved when we saw you weren't going to put yourself at risk by treating them with kid gloves."

"So, while it is _massively_ out of character for me to ask this, can we please, please, _please_ rip out that harridan's entrails and strangle her with them?"

He blinked once, twice, as he tried to process what he had just heard. Finally deciding this conversation was going to be as strange as the time she and Luna informed him they had accidentally turned the trees of Sherwood Forest carnivorous, he muttered, "That must have been one hell of an argument."

"No, it wasn't the argument we had just a minute ago. Well, not entirely." She sat heavily on one of the beds, the one Ginny hadn't slept in the night before to judge by the disheveled sheets of the other. "It's just… Ron's a blithering idiot, and while Ginny at least has an average intelligence, she's no potions prodigy. During my apprenticeship, one of the attending Healers mentioned that all love potions are extremely finicky to produce. Even a minor philter, if home-brewed, is far more likely to kill the person you're interested in than ensnare them. Yet we were potioned all throughout our sixth year with no adverse side effects. The only person I can think of who could do that is Molly 'I-Was-In-A-Potions-Apprenticeship-Until-Bill-Came -Along' Weasley.

"She _knew_ that Ron was too offensive to the female gender for anyone with a lick of common sense to want him. She _knew_ that Ginny was so obsessed with you that she would never consider looking for someone else. So what did it matter that we are far more compatible with each other than with her spawn? What did it matter that they would be _raping us_ every time we had sex under the potion's influence? _Nooooo_, a few hours in the kitchen and she has a cauldron full of _'One Big Weasley Family'_."

By now he had joined her on the bed and held her as she ranted. "Thank Merlin for Luna. If it weren't for her dragging us to St. Mungo's, we'd have broken up to be with the wastes of space."

She laughed mirthlessly. Luna was as sweet as her Patronus most of the time, but when she realized Molly had dosed them, she instantly changed from a gentle bunny to a vicious tigress. Four summoning charms, a bone-shattering curse, and an Apparation later, he and Hermione were on purging and neutralizing potions while the Hit Wizards the Healers called in were all that prevented Luna from returning to the Burrow and razing it — and everyone inside — to the ground.

Line theft was a serious crime in the magical world, but as they found out, that was only if the victim was of pure blood. Not even his new status as the Man-Who-Won made a hint of difference to the hide-bound old farts on the Wizengamot. He was half-blood, Hermione was a Muggleborn, the Weasleys were Purebloods. Case closed.

"My point, though, is that it wasn't a desperate attempt by a couple of mentally abnormal juveniles to get the objects of their desires; that would have been bad enough. No, it was a meticulously planned attack by a woman who revealed herself to be as much a pureblood bigot as Malfoy, just following Dumbledore instead of Voldemort. It's okay to force us into loveless relationships; we aren't pure, so obviously we're there entirely for the Weasleys' advancement. Hell, she stole from you for that same reason. She believes she deserves your money more than you do because your family tree doesn't look like an overgrown bramble where people searched for their future spouses at the family reunion. I didn't think I still hated her this much, but seeing her when I came in… I want that bitch dead."

"Well, that's a more direct idea than mine," he said. When she looked up at him from where her head was resting against his chest, he continued, "I had thought we could target Ron — and Ginny, should she cross the line — turn them into broken shells of who they once were. I don't want to destroy the whole family, though that would be simpler."

"Arthur, Bill, and Charlie," she said, to which he nodded. The first's only crime was being a weak man and allowing his wife to run roughshod all over him, and the third was completely unaware of the plot against them. The second, though, had lambasted his mother and siblings before walking out on them, vowing that he and Fleur would not set foot in the Burrow again. He told Harry several months later that he had never been more ashamed than he was when he found out about their actions, and it was only his position as the heir of the House of Weasley that kept him from abandoning his name. Had the trio not jumped back in time, Bill would have cast everyone involved out of the family before Arthur's body had time to cool.

"The twins, too. They're just immature jokers who haven't been properly taught morals, and Triple-W will make us a lot of money should we leave them alone."

Hermione nibbled her lip for a moment. "Maybe… maybe that will be enough. Those two _are_ her favorite children; leaving them dead, or worse, might do more lasting harm than killing her outright. And we can always finish her off later if it doesn't."

"True." He snorted as a thought struck him. "Just before you arrived, Dumbledore asked if I was going Dark because I called him out on trusting Snape more than anyone else in the Order. I told him no, and here we are, calmly weighing the pros and cons of murder. Oh, the irony."

"Nothing she doesn't deserve! Even if we choose to ignore the crimes that haven't been committed yet, she's still guilty as sin."

He raised the hand not holding his lover to him in mock surrender. "No arguments from me on that score. I just thought it was funny. Come on, we should join the others before they track us down and decide we can't be trusted alone with each other." Standing, he pulled her to her feet and unlocked the door. There was no need to borrow problems, after all.

* * *

"I know what you're doing."

Hermione lifted her eyes from the book in her hands to stare questioningly at Ginny. "I'm reading, as is my habit. I don't know what is so earth-shattering about that."

"It's not going to work." Ginny continued to glare, a mixture of outrage and superiority on her face. It wasn't a good look for her.

"Seriously, Ginny. What are you nattering on about?"

"You're trying to take my Harry away from me. Maybe if you dress like a slag, maybe if you smile sweetly at him during dinner, maybe if you don't act like a bookworm all the time, he'll think you're worth his attention? He's the Boy-Who-Lived, and much too good for you."

Hermione rolled her eyes. _Right, sharing a room with a deluded fangirl is __**not**__ going to work. Will Sirius let me move to the third floor with him and Harry?_ She couldn't help but smile at that thought. _He said the second floor was for guests and the third floor was for family, didn't he? Godfather, godson, and goddaughter-in-law, in spirit if not in fact, would continue that tradition._

Unfortunately, Ginny misinterpreted the meaning of her smile. "You think stealing him from me is _funny_?"

"Ginny," the older girl sighed, "Harry isn't yours. He doesn't even know you exist beyond being Ron's little sister." Which was why the Weasleys had to resort to potions in the original timeline. Much like Ron, Ginny had lofty goals but neither the ability nor work ethic to achieve them.

"And just whose fault is that?!"

"Yours, I do believe. Perhaps if you could do more than make cow eyes at him from across the room, stick your elbow in the butter dish, and squeak like a trodden mouse every time he so much as spoke to you, that wouldn't be the case, but it is. Harry is _my_ boyfriend," _and best friend, and one of the loves of my life,_ "and we are both quite happy with that."

"He's not yours yet," Ginny responded with a scowl. Hermione mentally shook her head; there was no way to break the girl's obsession. If being forcefully interrogated via Veritaserum like a criminal and then told right to her face that Harry wanted nothing to do with her couldn't set her straight, nothing would. "I can offer him more than you ever could!"

"Personality disorders, boyish figure, full-blown Oedipus complex? I don't think he'll be all that appreciative. I, on the other hand, can give him a loving partner who knows him well enough for us to converse with a look and can keep him both mentally and physically engaged. Just accept it and move on, Ginerva; in any fight for Harry's heart, I've already won."

The red-head moved to draw her wand, only to see Hermione's own already pointing at her. "What are you going to do? Not only am I armed while you're not, I'm superior to you in both magical power and spell knowledge. You have nothing that can hurt me, but I trained with Harry for the Triwizard Tournament. We weren't looking for tickling hexes, I can assure you of that."

"I know the Bat-Bogey Hex!"

"So Gin-Gin's got herself a prank spell," Hermione mocked, anger rising at the brat's overconfidence. Did Ginny _really_ think that was enough? If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was being underestimated; she may not be able to kill in cold blood like Harry and Luna, but she was no whimpering coward! "I get a bunch of mucus slapping at my face, big deal. Meanwhile, I've turned you into a smear on the wall. A simple _Finite_ will solve my problem; nothing will do that for you. Let me give you a little advice: if you're going to try stealing Harry from me, you damn well better have a strong bite to back up your bark. Otherwise, you're going to find yourself in a _world_ of hurt."

She threw her book and the pajamas she had pulled out back into her trunk before slamming it shut. Shouldering the girl out of the way, she carried her belongings out of the room. Ginny apparently couldn't resist one last taunt. "Going to go back home now? Good, Harry will be happier without you keeping us apart."

"No, I'm going to ask Sirius for another room. Maybe he'll put me in one on the third floor, next to Harry's." The screech was all the warning she needed, and she kicked the door closed. Unfortunately, Ginny hadn't cast a spell; instead, she chose a physical assault and, from the bang and thud, ran head-first into the door. The thick and garbled moan indicated a broken nose.

Hermione smirked as she walked up the stairs. No matter the fallout from her actions, that had been _fun_.

* * *

The next morning, Harry woke early and indulged in one of his favorite activities to delay getting up to face the day. With each stroke of his hand down Hermione's spine, her sleeping form twitched and moaned as she snuggled deeper into his side. Despite the trouble they would face downstairs — _And there __**will**__ be trouble_, he thought in exasperation — there was one very nice benefit from Hermione's and Ginny's fight. Sirius had negligently told her she could move into whatever room she wanted, and it hadn't taken her two seconds before she was pushing his clothes in the wardrobe to the side to make room for her own.

After one final shiver, the brunette stretched herself out alongside him. "Goo' mor'in'," she slurred.

"Good morning to you, too, sleepyhead. Time to wake up and face the music."

"Do we have to?" she whined with a yawn. "Can't we just tell them to bugger off and leave us alone for a while? I'm too warm and comfy to deal with Molly's wailing."

He rolled his eyes; Hermione was many things, but a morning person she was _not_. "Yes, we have to. If we don't, she'll make even more noise about us sharing a bed."

"You mean she'll make noise about us sharing a bed with _each other_, rather than Ron and Ginny," she retorted as she reluctantly stood up and rifled through drawers. "Where did I put my bras?"

"Next one to the left." Accepting her mumbled thanks, he stretched out on the bed. "How do we want to handle this? Molly's not going to take our relationship well."

Hermione pulled on a blouse before she responded. "Does it really matter how she takes it? The woman can throw herself in the Thames for all I care. We just need to come up with a convincing cover story about how we managed to get together so we can avoid too much questioning from your wardens."

"Already ahead of you on that one. I told Sirius that I couldn't share a room with Ron because I was taking the coach to your house and we rather inevitably started dating. Considering most of the guarding was done by Dung…"

"Good point. Did you also tell him _why_ you were visiting me? We need to make sure our stories match completely."

"I had to talk to someone and was effectively banished from the Wizarding World."

She grimaced. "Ouch, that must have hurt for him to hear."

"It did, but I had just been attacked by Dawlish and questioned by Madam Bones. I was a little on edge." He caught the trousers and shirt she tossed to him and tugged them on. "Shall we?"

The pair entered the kitchen and were immediately set upon by Molly. "Hermione Granger! How could you do something like that?!"

"Intelligence, beauty, and natural talent," Hermione replied. Sitting, she glanced at the steaming older woman. "Was that not the answer you were looking for?"

"You attacked my daughter!"

Seeing that everyone's eyes were on her, she sighed and said, "I didn't _attack_ Ginny; she ran into the door on her own. She wouldn't have been injured had she not charged at me."

"Charged at you?" Harry asked, feigning ignorance. "Whatever for?"

"She was unhappy that we're dating. Apparently, she wanted you for herself, and didn't care if she hurt me to make it so."

Now it was Ginny their audience was staring at. The girl was reddening in embarrassment and fury, but before she could explode, Ron finally raised his head from his plate and turned towards them. "'Oo are 'oo 'a'ing, 'Arr?"

"Chew, swallow, _then_ speak," Hermione snapped with a scowl. "Honestly, after four years, I would have thought you learned that."

Ron returned her look and forcefully swallowed. "Lay off, Hermione. No one cares. Whoever you're dating, Harry, I feel sorry for her. Ginny's got a wicked hex."

"I'm dating Hermione, Ron. We just said that."

"You? Hermione? _What?_" The spells Harry and Luna had laid on Ron on the train activated again, and he whipped his hands down to cover the stain at his groin.

Unfortunately, he forgot that he was still holding his fork.

Doing his best to ignore Ron's high-pitched yell, as were all the males, Harry turned to the instigator of this debacle. "Ginny, I hardly know you, and even if I did, I wouldn't consider dating someone who attacked my girlfriend. I'm with Hermione; if you were our friend, you would just step away and be happy for us." Perhaps a public rejection would work where a private confrontation had not, but he doubted it. The way she was going, she would put herself on their list of enemies before too much longer.

"No, I won't allow it." Molly had apparently cleared her mind from the image of her plans crashing to the ground and was now glaring at them. "You two are far too young to be dating. You will call it off, and maybe we'll discuss it next summer."

"I told you yesterday that you aren't my mother. Do _not_ act like it."

"I believe I said something similar a few days ago, Mrs. Weasley," Harry added. "You have no control over our decisions, and we have not asked for your advice. Kindly stay out of this."

The matriarch was not to be denied. "Obviously, you both need a proper mother figure —"

"No, we don't, and even if we did, we wouldn't want _you_ for it. If all of you will excuse me, I seem to have lost my appetite." Hermione stood and stomped out the door.

Harry rose as well. Like Hermione, he hated the woman for what she had done and was planning to do again; he just hid it better. "Mrs. Weasley, your insistence on treating us like two of your children is rapidly burning through any respect we have for you. I recommend you stop before you lose it completely." His warning given, he left in search of his lover. _That won't stop Molly, but perhaps it will buy us some time. Dealing with her, Ron, and Ginny all day, every day is wearing on our patience. September better hurry up; I don't think we'll be able to hold ourselves back much longer._

* * *

**If you will allow me to beat a dead horse for a moment: Molly was joking about using a love potion on Arthur in book 3. We found out that Voldie was conceived by Merope Gaunt using a love potion to date-rape Tom Riddle in book 6. **_**Did Rowling not realize how messed up that is?**_

* * *

**magitech:** I'm in complete agreement with your analysis of the Weasleys and Dumbledore. As for the sunglasses… they'd protect against _passive_ Legilimency, but the wanded version doesn't need eye contact. Of course, it isn't subtle, either.

**sachaelle:** Sirius isn't the _best_ godfather, certainly, but as books 4 and 5 show, he _was_ trying. Personally, I think some of his problem, like comparing Harry to James, could be due to Azkaban not leaving him… totally mentally sound.

**Joe Lawyer:** Hermione, for all she knows about magic, shows repeatedly that the culture isn't something she pays a great deal of attention to. Maybe if she had done so, or read some of Lavender's or Parvati's romance novels, she'd have known how big a deal her offer was (not that Harry would have, anyway).

**Silently Watches out.**


	20. Summer's End

**Disclaimer:** Did Ron become prefect even though by this point in canon he had been almost totally useless? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 20  
****Summer's End**

Much to Molly's, Ron's, and Ginny's disgust, the rest of Grimmauld Place's occupants were enthusiastic and congratulatory about Harry and Hermione being together. Of course, they all showed their approval in different ways: Sirius shouted to them whenever he found a cozy, empty room that he thought would be excellent for a snogging session; Lupin smiled faintly and mumbled about James and Lily a few times when he caught them holding hands; and Fred and George repeatedly praised their incredible timing, having arranged a betting pool on when the "Golden Couple", as they were called in the common room when they weren't in earshot, would figure out that they were perfect for each other. Apparently, no one had placed money for that summer, which meant the two miscreants kept all the money in the pot rather than the half they would have received should someone have actually won.

Tonks, though, was the most fun. She elected to prove that she was indeed Sirius's cousin by constantly teasing them and trying for a blush. Had they truly been fifteen and sixteen and dating for the first time, she likely would have gotten a kick out of it. Instead, she had to deal with two adults who had been lovers for almost seven years; they found it quite amusing to turn the tables whenever she gave particularly raunchy advice. The metamorph's poleaxed expression when Hermione first rejoined that she wasn't interested in a suggestion because Harry was too large for it to be comfortable was priceless.

Of course, not everything was wonderful. Molly showed her displeasure by assigning the couple more and more tasks with her two younger children, perhaps hoping that either Ron or Ginny could tempt the person of their affections to end the relationship, only for Harry and Hermione to refuse. This was a shock to the harridan, who had apparently never been told _'no'_ before that summer. Interspersed between the rejected chores were lectures that were ignored and possibly potions to make them more pliable, though the adults in teenagers' skins were unconcerned thanks to Hermione's neutralizing potions.

All good things must come to an end, however, and when the overbearing woman came in on the last day of vacation only to see them packing their trunks with clothes pulled from the same chest of drawers, Mount Molly erupted once more.

"…_and_ you violated the trust we showed you! I expected more from you especially, Hermione, though I don't know why, considering you've started dressing like a shameless tart. Obviously you've spent too much time with Muggles if you think it's fine to be a scarlet woman. Why… Are you two even listening to a word I've said?!"

Hermione looked up from where she was rearranging her books for the third time in order to fit the last of her socks into the trunk. "Harry, have you any idea what is making that racket?"

It was a supreme act of will not to start laughing at the matriarch's face and his friend's faux-innocent smile. "Whatever do you mean, Mione?"

"I could swear I keep hearing this annoying screech, like seabirds fighting over some chips left on the shore."

"I wouldn't know. I've never been to the beach." Which was no longer true, considering that the trio had spent quite a bit of time visiting Bill and Fleur at Shell Cottage. Veela lived primarily on France's southern coast, so Fleur had been understandably horrified when he revealed that he had never seen the sea before seeking refuge with them. She insisted that he and the girls come visit whenever they wished, and then introduced them to numerous French customs, including… _Oh, Merlin, please don't go there_.

Hermione had apparently followed a similar train of thought, for she smirked wickedly and said, "Well, we'll just have to correct that. My parents were planning to visit France next summer, and being a teenage boy, you'll absolutely _love_ Nice."

"Why is that?" he asked, mentally bracing for the explosion.

"It has a topless beach."

"_Enough!_" Molly shrieked. "I do not want to hear any more of these lies! There is no way adults would let children act so… so… disgusting, even if they are French."

Hermione rolled her eyes and faced the woman. "Mrs. Weasley, I've been to the French Riviera. You obviously haven't. Don't argue about things you don't know; it only makes you look like a bigger fool." She turned her back on Molly, whose face was reddening to a shade reminiscent of the late, unlamented Vernon Dursley. Knowing the harpy's temper, Harry kept a careful eye out; should he see even a _splinter_ of a wand, he would curse her and damn the consequences.

Thankfully, Molly was capable of suppressing her desire to lash out this time, and his lover took a moment to slam the lid of her trunk down. "Well, that's every bit of space in here. Harry, do you mind if I throw my last few things in your trunk tomorrow?"

"You know I don't. We're just in time for lunch, too; Lady Hermione, may I have the honor?" He offered an elbow, and Hermione giggled before linking her arm in his.

They were halfway down the stairs when he whispered in her ear, "Mione, _must_ you antagonize her so when we only have to bear her presence for another day?"

"Yes," she said simply, causing him to nearly miss the next step. "If I can't throw her down the stairs just yet, you can be sure that I will needle her every chance she gives me. Besides, I'm conducting an experiment."

"An experiment?" He stopped and turned to face her. "What kind of experiment?"

"Whether or not magic protects witches from anger-induced strokes."

He shook his head in irritation. "Hermione, if my mere presence didn't cause Vernon, a magic-hating Muggle, from having a stroke in the sixteen years I lived in that house, annoying Molly won't do it in a few weeks."

"Huh?" Harry and Hermione turned to see Ron staring at them in confusion. "What do you mean, you lived with the Muggles for sixteen years? You're only fifteen."

"_Obliviate_." With the ginger's eyes now glazed as he forgot the past minute, the pair continued down the stairs. "Don't waste any more of your time with her, please."

Hermione huffed in disappointment. "All right, I won't cause further problems this summer." She opened the door to the kitchen and stopped. "Professor McGonagall? What are you doing here?"

"I was just about to start looking for the two of you. Your Hogwarts letters," the Scottish witch said, pulling out said envelopes.

Hermione swiftly opened hers, forcing a gasp as she saw the contents. She pulled out a small scarlet and gold badge. "Prefect?"

"Of course," McGonagall laughed. "Who else could you see me choosing?"

"Oh, thank you so much, Professor. Harry and I will do you and Gryffindor House proud!"

McGonagall blinked in surprise. "Mr. Potter isn't a prefect, Ms. Granger."

"He's not?"

"I'm not?"

"Well, no," the woman answered lamely.

Puffing up in indignation, Hermione stared down their head of House. "And why not? Saving the Philosopher's Stone, killing a basilisk, competing against seventeen year olds and still becoming Triwizard Champion? To use your own words, Professor, who else could we see you choosing?"

"Hermione, it's not a big deal," he said, pulling her into a hug. "If I'm not prefect, I'm not prefect. That leaves me with more time to do other things this year."

"But it's the principle of the thing! There is no one else in the school who can claim to have done anything _close_ to what you've accomplished, and yet she's going to ignore your status as a leader amongst the students? It's a travesty!"

"Ms. Granger," McGonagall offered tentatively, "I _did_ want Mr. Potter as the boys' prefect. I was overruled by the Headmaster."

That did not cool the brunette's temper. "Except the Headmaster chooses the Head Boy and Girl, not the prefects. _That_ is the job of the heads of Houses. Dumbledore can't overrule you unless you let him."

"That is quite enough. Headmaster Dumbledore is a very wise man; if he though it best Mr. Potter was not prefect, he must have his reasons."

_Oh, he has his reasons, all right. Not that they're good ones_, Harry thought furiously. Dumbledore knew his words carried a great deal of weight with the other students, which the man had to stop; can't let the sacrifice get ideas above his station, after all. "Very well. Since there is no other recourse…"

"At least Neville will make a good partner. This will certainly be a boost to his confidence."

McGonagall frowned as she handed the rest of the Weasleys their letters. "Mr. Longbottom isn't my other prefect, either."

"Of course not," the brunette muttered. "Dean is a decent choice, I suppose, though his reputation as a womanizer does cause me some understandable concern."

"Nor is it Mr. Thomas."

Hermione scowled. "You may or may not know this, but Seamus and I had some rather harsh words at the end of last term. I'm worried that us having to work together might cause some… unpleasantness."

"Mr. Finnigan is not my prefect, either. You are not normally this obtuse, Ms. Granger."

"Well, I can't see who else you could have possibly chosen!"

"Prefect?" Ron said, staring at his letter.

The intelligent girl whirled back to face the professor, eyes glinting with true righteous fury. Apparently, Harry being passed up for prefect had disturbed her more in the original timeline that she had let on. "You gave _Ronald_ the position?"

"Yes," McGonagall stated hesitantly. "I'm surprised you didn't think I would."

Looking down at the badge with fake sorrow, Hermione laid it on the table. "I'm sorry, Professor, but I can't accept this. Even if I ignore that Harry was cheated out of the position, I have enough on my plate keeping him out of trouble. I just don't have the time to do my own assignments, complete the work of two prefects, _and_ stop Ron from abusing his authority. You need to find someone else."

"I won't abuse anything!" Ron exploded.

"You will, and you know it. I refuse to be held liable for your immaturity."

McGonagall interrupted their growing argument. "Ms. Granger, please be reasonable. Who else could I choose for the girls' prefect?"

"You already chose Ronald for the boys'; I'm sure you can find someone equally undeserving as my replacement."

The professor just stared in shock, then shook her head. "I must say that I am disappointed in your attitude."

"I could say the same for yours."

Harry tugged his lover gently out of the room. "Are you sure that was the right choice, Mione? I remember how much you enjoyed being prefect."

"I stand by what I told McGonagall a minute ago. There is no way anyone without an ulterior motive could say you shouldn't be prefect. We'll just have to see which eventually wins out: her desire for me to have the position, her upcoming disgust with Ronald, or her subordination to Dumbledore."

Molly joined them a few moments later, an air of superiority surrounding her. "It's a shame you gave up being a prefect, Hermione. It's something to be proud of in our world."

"Better my pride suffers than my integrity," Hermione shot back.

Mentally sighing at the similarities between Ron and his mother, Harry intervened before the conflict could turn violent. "Is there something you needed, Mrs. Weasley?"

"Yes, dear," Molly replied. "Since you have to return to Hogwarts tomorrow, I thought it best that I go ahead and get everyone's school supplies at once. Would you run up to your room and get your key for me?"

_I bet you're only asking because you can't find it on your own_, he thought. Predicting that the harpy would try something like this, he had left his Gringotts key in the study of Potter Manor; with the Fidelius ward up, only he and those he told the Secret to, namely the elves and his girls, could go in and remove it, and only he could reveal its location. Rather than immediately answer, he opened the letter that was still in his hand and glanced over the enclosed list. _Same as the last time we lived through this. Excellent_. "Actually, you don't need you to buy anything for us."

"Of course I do. You didn't know what supplies you needed until today."

"Oh, we didn't _know_; it's just a lucky coincidence. We refilled our potion ingredients and replaced our old uniforms this summer. As for the books," he pointed out the two texts listed, "we knew we would need the fifth Goshawk book, and I picked up a number of Defense works while we were in Flourish and Blotts. Slinkhard was included in that."

"Wasn't that the book you looked through and said wasn't useful outside of a schoolyard brawl?" Hermione asked.

"That's the one. All three hundred pages can be boiled down to a single sentence: run to the nearest authority figure and tell them what happened. It's useless tripe." Which was why he hadn't actually bought it. They knew what the cover looked like, so a simple glamour would allow them to read _real_ books in Umbridge's class. After raiding five manors, it wasn't like they had a dearth of material.

"Then I guess I won't worry about getting my own copy."

Molly's face was so red that Harry half-expected steam to whistle out her ears. "You two are only children. I'm sure you have forgotten _something_, and if you give me your key, I'll make sure you have it before school starts."

"Thanks, but no thanks, Mrs. Weasley." He and Hermione stepped through the open doorway into the kitchen, and he turned around to look back. "If we need something, we have the weekend to owl order it. Now, can you stop demanding my Gringotts key? If I didn't know better, I'd think you were planning to take money from my vault for your own purposes."

He carefully kept his face blank as Molly's own drastically paled. With all the non-Weasley witnesses who had just heard his declaration, there was no way she could continue her requests, not without inviting some serious suspicion. Sure, she would probably try to tear through his trunk once again, but with it being warded and containing nothing of value, not even his invisibility cloak, he didn't really care.

_Let her waste her time. Without income stolen from my vault to augment Arthur's pittance of a salary, she'll become desperate. Desperate people make more mistakes, and if she makes one large enough, I might just set Mione on her, after all._

* * *

"For the last time, Sirius, no!"

Sirius looked at Harry pleadingly. "Come on, it'll be fine. I'll even be Padfoot; no one will recognize me."

"Really?" He looked askance at his godfather. "Tell me, Sirius, which Death Eater was it who helped Voldemort return to life?"

"You said it was Wormtail."

"Yes, I did. Who were the Marauders?"

"Me, Moony, your father, and Wormtail. I don't see where you're going with this," Sirius said.

"So, if Pettigrew knows about you being an Animagus, _and_ is a Death Eater, why would you think that the rat hasn't spilled everything he knows to his master and new best mates?" Harry nodded as Sirius's face finally indicated comprehension. "There's still a Kiss-on-sight order out on you. All it would take is one 'Imperiused' Death Eater — Lucius Malfoy, for instance — hitting you with an Animagus-reversal spell, and you would be in shackles waiting for the worst snog of your life."

"Actually, I think Stephanie Edgecomb —"

"Padfoot, I don't need or want to hear about your sexual misadventures." There were things about his godfather's life that he simply was not meant to know. "The point is, it will be much safer for everyone if you stay here." Seeing that Sirius was gearing up to resume the argument, he continued, "I already lost you for twelve years because of your impulsivity; can we _not_ make that a permanent arrangement, please?"

Sirius grimaced at that; Harry knew it was a low blow, but it was a point that had to be made. An upset Padfoot was infinitely preferable to a dead Padfoot. "Fine. James would have —" Sirius snapped his mouth closed, but not soon enough.

"What was that? My father would have let you do something as stupid as come along to one of the year's largest concentrations of magicals, and therefore Aurors, with you being a wanted prison escapee?" Harry asked softly, his temper rising. Across the hallway, Hermione winced; she and Luna both had told him at times that they almost missed how he used to shout in anger. Like a serpent, his tongue had become more venomous as he aged. "If I might remind you, Hogwarts in the seventies did not boast Dementors, basilisks, or deranged Dark Lords as part of its normal dangers. _I_, unlike my father, encounter quite enough trouble without being reckless for the sheer _fun of it_."

"I've said it before, but you are so much like Lily it's scary. She had a way of cutting you down until you felt like you were all of three inches tall, too."

"If you still feel three inches tall, I obviously wasn't trying hard enough. I was aiming for less than one." Harry grinned at the man-child, letting Sirius know that he wasn't _too_ angry. In the two weeks they had spent together, this was the first time Sirius had commented negatively on his actions based on what his father would have done. Regardless of what Molly implied, the Animagus clearly knew he was not James. "Besides, you know that I would love it if you could come see me off the platform, but it's just not safe."

"Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"And I'm not asking you to. Merlin's beard, I certainly don't."

Sirius nodded, then pulled him into a tight hug. "I'm going to miss you. You had better be back here for Christmas, understand?" At his nod, Sirius released him, then gestured to Hermione. When in range, she too was pulled into an embrace. Listening closely, Harry could just barely make out the words whispered between them.

"It's silly to ask this, but take care of him for me. I couldn't love him any more if he was my own."

"I always do, and I always will. He won't say it, but you should know he feels the same for you."

Clearing his throat roughly, he turned to Tonks, who was standing nearby. "Any chance we could leave now? There's no need for Mione and I to wait for the Weasleys. I think they'll be a while longer," he added as a loud bang sounded overhead.

The metamorph quickly wiped a tear from one eye; obviously, she had also heard the pair. "I don't see any reason why not. Sirius, let the girl go before her boyfriend gets jealous."

Another round of goodbyes delayed them, but soon Harry and Hermione were on their way, accompanied by Tonks, now disguised as an old woman, and Moody. The twenty minute walk was silent, each person either occupied by their own thoughts or watching the gamboling squirrels with undue suspicion. Finally arriving at King's Cross, the quartet took advantage of the bustling crowd to slip through the barrier separating Platform Nine and Three-Quarters from the rest of the station unnoticed.

"It was great to meet you," Tonks said as she hugged Harry and Hermione. "We'll see each other again soon, I expect."

"Soon? Is the Order providing security during Hogsmeade visits, perchance?"

Tonks snickered at Hermione's question and waggled her finger. "Ah, ah, ah. Can't be telling you something like that. You'll just have to wait and see. C'mon, Mad-Eye; we better make sure the rest of the troop haven't gotten lost or kidnapped." She ignored the scarred Auror's paranoid ramblings as they departed.

Starting at the back car, the pair quickly found a compartment that was occupied solely by a svelte blonde girl reading a magazine. They slipped inside and stowed their luggage before sealing and silencing the door. Sitting, Harry immediately noticed a small wooden crate filled with straw on the seat next to Luna. Something about it, though, made him unwilling to ask what it contained. "So, how was your trip to Siberia?"

"Cold." Luna looked up from her _Quibbler_, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly. "But very… interesting. And expensive; you wouldn't believe how much onions cost over there. How was London?"

"It would have been better if _someone_ wasn't so reasonable," Hermione huffed.

"Because torturing Molly in the middle of dinner would be easy to explain." Harry shook his head with a sigh; perhaps, now that she and the Weasley matriarch would be in different countries, the brunette could finally calm down. Her persistent rage, so out of character for her, worried him. "Other than holding Mione back and revealing our relationship, it was uneventful."

The trio were silent, then he sighed once again. "Okay, I need to ask. What's in the box?"

Luna smiled, then removed the lid. At first glance, Harry thought she had brought a rabbit, but he had never seen one that pastel shade of blue before. Closer examination revealed that it had short, curled horns much like a ram; it also lacked legs, making it little more than an enormous ball of fluff. "What in Merlin's name _is_ that?"

"I thought that was obvious," the blonde replied, cuddling the animal into her chest. "You told me before we left the school that if Daddy and I found a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, you'd let me keep one as a pet."

"_That's_ a Snorkack? You and Xeno were right?" Hermione asked breathlessly.

Luna smirked while lowering the creature to the floor. Once there, it rocked back and forth for a bit before squirming forward much like a slug would. He now understood its strange appearance; the wide belly it moved along on would act like a sled, keeping it on top of deep snow. "We almost didn't find them. It turns out that the reason they're so elusive is that they produce a weak Notice-Me-Not-like effect. When we saw that the onions we set out were disappearing, Daddy put a supersensory charm on us both. Clyde's wearing a collar that negates his personal field, which is how you can see him."

"Clyde?"

"Oh, yes, that's his nickname," she answered to his deepening confusion. "His real name is Vociferous Limax Oglethorpe the Third, but that's too long for daily use, so everyone just calls him Clyde."

"Third?" It had been a long time since Luna shocked him into one-word questions, but she had certainly achieved it now.

"Well, I've already had pets named Vociferous Limax Oglethorpe the First and Second, so Third _would_ be next in the sequence."

This brought Hermione out of her shock. "I'm sorry, but did you say _everyone_ calls him Clyde?"

"Well, it's really just everyone who's met him, so me, and Daddy, and our translator, and the people standing around the Portkey Terminal in Tobolsk, including one very surly group of vampires who didn't like that I wouldn't let them try his blood, and the hit wizards providing security for the platform, and now you two."

"That's… quite a number of people."

"It is, isn't it?"

Harry shook his head; something about this absurd situation was niggling his memories. A sudden snap of his fingers caught the girls' attention. "Five years."

They both blinked in his direction. "What?"

"Five years," he repeated, looking at Hermione. "That was the bet, that Luna couldn't find a Snorkack within five years. It's only been three."

Luna's eyes brightened in glee. "I had forgotten about that. Standard forfeit, Mione."

The brunette covered her face and groaned. The girls' normal prize for their wagers was that the other had to dress in a kinky outfit for seven nights, not necessarily consecutively. He often served as the unofficial bookie, but he didn't mind in the least; no matter who lost the bet, he won. "Fine. What do I have to wear?"

"Hmm… I was always partial to the sexy schoolgirl. Unless you have any ideas, Harry?"

"Why, I just might." Drawing his wand, he projected on the floor a half-scale illusion of Hermione that he had been saving for a rainy day. "Does this meet with your approval?"

Luna stared at the moving figure. Wearing a veil above loose, sheer leggings with a top and belt covered in golden discs, the fake Hermione undulated her hips and abdomen rhythmically. The real Hermione took one look and slapped her hands over her face again in embarrassment; the belly dancer outfit really did not leave much to the imagination.

Only after the show was over did the blonde look back up. "Luna like. Hermione…"

"Fine, fine. Just as long as it's after your birthday." The young woman huffed and glared at him. "I will get you back for this humiliation."

Harry shrugged blithely. As far as he was concerned, whatever revenge she cooked up would be totally worth it.

* * *

**I missed Luna. Anyone who can identify the movie quote gets extra kudos (hint: Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt).**

* * *

**MariusDarkwolf:** Sirius offered Grimmauld Place as headquarters, and Dumbledore then persuaded him to let Harry's friends stay over for their safety. The rest of the Weasleys came along as a matter of course.

**Dorkchic:** Snape seemed to go overboard on just about everything that had to do with the Marauders; honestly, I think the real issue is that he's a drama queen. Concerning Sirius's case, we really don't know anything about how the canon Ministry works. Could he have been illegally thrown in prison solely on Crouch's orders, yes. However, he also could have been tried _in absentia_ and found guilty (like Fudge attempted to do to Harry), the Ministry may order evidence to be destroyed after a short time period, or Amelia Bones might not have the authority to reopen cases without approval from the Wizengamot or Minister. We just don't know. As for why Harry isn't pushing for it in this story, he doesn't trust the Ministry as far as he can throw it. There's no way to arrange a meeting between Sirius and any Ministry representative and be completely sure that someone won't bring a Dementor to the party. After all, that's exactly what happened to Crouch Jr. in book 4.

**Silently Watches out.**


	21. Loop-de-Loop

**Yes, yes, I know it's late, but neuroanatomy takes precedence over fanfiction. Also, I want to give a special shout out to RRW, who brought this story up to **_**1,000 reviews**_**. We've hit a milestone, people!**

**Disclaimer:** Did Dumbledore deny that Death created the Hallows while he and Harry were standing on the _DOORMAT_ of the _AFTERLIFE_? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 21  
****Loop-de-loop**

After a bit of groveling to cheer Hermione up, the train ride went smoothly. The brunette walked them through the month she had spent bouncing around Australia, describing each museum, art gallery, historical landmark, and architectural beauty in such detail that Harry was sure he could write a highly accurate travel guide despite never leaving Britain's shores. More important in his eyes was that she had repaired the somewhat strained relationship she had with her parents, even strengthening it due to her increased years and maturity. As dusk settled over the countryside and Hermione ran out of words, Luna jumped in and swept them away to chilly Siberia. Unsurprisingly, the Lovegoods' expedition was less safari and more comedy of errors, and he suspected more than once that Luna _wanted_ to make them pass out from laughter. He also resolved to avoid yaks at all costs; who knew they were such ornery creatures?

Though if Xeno really had tried to force them into burlap diapers, Harry supposed he couldn't blame them too much.

When the whistle blew, indicating five minutes until they arrived at their destination, the trio changed into their school robes, glad for the space the half-full compartment provided them. A basic avoidance charm provided them solitude, not to mention a bit of entertainment as Ron, Ginny, and Malfoy had swept past multiple times. The two boys had most unfortunately not started dueling in the middle of the corridor, or at least not in front of them, but their pursuers' confused expressions prompted increasingly outlandish voice-overs courtesy of Hermione and Luna, which were just as funny in his opinion. They waited until the train car was empty before they departed.

"I am _so_ glad I'm not in charge of this mess again," Hermione sighed as they walked the short distance to a line of thestral-pulled carriages. Taking a moment to pat the highly intelligent beasts of burden, they climbed in. "So, what's the plan for the school year?"

Luna shook her head. "Silly Mione, that one's obvious. We're going to sow utter chaos, break students' and teachers' spirits left and right, skip class, have lots of kinky sex, and generally join Harry as public enemies. It's going to be so much fun!"

"Don't forget stealing several dozen fortunes," said public enemy added. "Since we don't have to be in classes until Monday, I figured we could go ahead and hit Rookwood's place tomorrow. That will be the last of the empty manors, and then we can start on the occupied ones. Speaking of that, did either one of you design the mark we're going to be leaving?"

"Finished it in Siberia," Luna stated. "I'll show it to you later."

They sat in comfortable silence for the few minutes it took the black, winged horses to pull them to the castle's doors. Once stopped, Luna picked up Clyde's crate, Hermione did the same to Crookshank's basket, and Harry smirked, Hedwig's cage sitting empty in Potter Manor. There was a definite benefit to having an owl as a familiar.

After the girls set their carriers in the corner of the Entrance Hall where all the other pets waited to be whisked to the dormitories, Luna drifted to the Ravenclaw table and claimed a seat separated from her housemates. He and Hermione joined a waving Neville and grinning Lavender and Parvati at the middle of the table. The other students were eerily silent as they passed, only to resume the rumor-monging even more intensely. He mentally shrugged; much to his displeasure, he had not stopped being the object of wild tales after Voldemort's second defeat. They had, in fact, gotten worse, leading him to just ignore them and those who spread them. He could find far better things to do than concern himself with brainless babbling.

"Toad present and accounted for," Hermione muttered as she looked around, drawing a curious look from Neville. "Goat, bat, and ferret, as well."

"Kitty's busy, but bear's missing. You think he's enjoying cheese and wine again?"

She nodded. Unless this timeline had diverged drastically from their own, they wouldn't see Hagrid until early November. As much as he missed his large friend, this was probably for the best; Dumbledore's word was gospel to the half-giant.

Hermione, who had continued scanning the room while he ruminated, suddenly snorted. At his confused look, she mouthed, "Look at Greengrass."

Barely hiding a scowl, he turned in his seat to examine the Slytherin table. He had had an issue with that family ever since the eldest daughter, Daphne, attempted to seduce him after the Second War and her father prosecuted the trio when she failed. _That's strange_, he thought as he glanced over the Snakes more slowly, _I can't see her any… Oh._

He spun back around to glare at his snickering lover. "Well, at least I won't have to worry about _him_ chasing after me." Hermione just laughed; at long last, they had found evidence that they had not, in fact, simply traveled back in time. "We're still getting them, though."

"Oh, absolutely."

McGonagall set a three-legged stool and a frayed hat in front of the staff table, cutting off all the whispered conversations around them. The next twenty minutes were taken up by the crop of first years being divided into their Houses, and he clapped automatically for all the new Gryffindors. It was impossible to feign any enthusiasm.

The students applauded as Rose Zeller became the latest Badger, most because they could finally get to the important task of stuffing their faces. While the Great Hall was full of noise, Harry felt a tug on his robes. He quickly cast his eyes around only to find no one there. Confused, he patted the section of clothing that had been disturbed, then slipped his hand into his pocket. Someone had slipped him a roll of parchment? Resolving to read it later, whatever it said, he grabbed the platter of roast making its way past him.

Once the last of the desserts had faded from the table, Dumbledore stood, effortlessly attracting everyone's attention. "Now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your time for the usual start-of-term notices. First years ought to know that the forest on the grounds is out of bounds to students… and a few of our older students ought to know by now, too."

Harry rolled his eyes. _Let's see: rebellious teenagers, mysterious and potentially dangerous forest, no adult supervision whatsoever… whose bright idea was it to plant the Forbidden Forest around the school again?_

"We have had two changes in staffing this ear. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

He glared at the squat woman in the awful pink cardigan. _Enjoy your time in the spotlight, Dolores Jean Umbridge, because we're going to make your life a living Hell, and only after you've fallen off the edge of sanity will I finally grant you the mercy of death._

Unaware of his dark thoughts, Dumbledore continued his announcements. "Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the —"

"_Hem, hem_." Umbridge stood, not that it made much of a difference in height, and the old man frowned faintly before sitting in his seat. Harry wasn't sure if he should enjoy this or not; on the one hand, it was always amusing to see Dumbledore taken down a peg or two, something interrupting him had definitely done, but on the other, he despised the toad.

"Thank you, Headmaster, for those kinds words of welcome." Her squeaky voice made him cringe, and a glance at Hermione showed she wasn't taking it any better. In fact, she was glaring at Umbridge with even more hatred than she had at Molly. "Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking back at me! I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"

Clearing her throat again — Harry wondered if, not for the first time, if that was an affectation or if speaking in so high a pitch was truly that rough on her voice — Umbridge forced her face to an expression that was vaguely businesslike. "The —"

What came out of her mouth next was not what he expected. An actual _ribbit_, surprisingly deep for her small size, echoed through the silent hall.

Harry lost his battle for self-control, but he wasn't the only one. The entire student body, even the Slytherins, cracked up as Umbridge repeated her annoying tic and tried to continue speaking. The same thing happened again, the school laughing even harder.

After the third time, Dumbledore rose from his chair and ushered her to her own. "Well, I'm sure Professor Umbridge will be more than willing to continue her speech after a visit to Madam Pomfrey. As I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held over the weekend, so approach the various Captains if you wish to join your House's team. Now, I'm sure you all wish to head to your nice, warm beds, so I will bid you all good night."

Standing proudly, his prefect badge polished to a shine, Ron called out to the first years. "Hey — hey, you lot! Midgets! Come on and follow me!"

"Again, _so_ glad I have nothing to do with this," Hermione huffed. "Discipline in the House this year is going to be totally nonexistent."

Harry frowned and looked to her. "Surely the other four prefects can keep order, can't they?"

"No, or at least, they didn't; they were too used to following Percy's lead. I'm sure you weren't paying attention _last year_, but no one was willing to step up." She leaned in and whispered, "Why do you think Ron and I were in charge fifth year? We were the only ones who wanted to be."

"Makes sense, I suppose, given wizards' natural tendency to follow the loudest voice," he sighed.

Walking out with the rest of the crowd, he cast a Notice-Me-Not around them and pulled Hermione into an empty room just off the front hall. "Was that really necessary?" she griped. He shrugged and pulled the parchment from his pocket.

_Well, that was amusing, wasn't it? It's amazing what a minor compulsion can do in the right hands. Anyway, you need to call Dobby, then go back two hours. Umbitch's door has only a minor alert charm, so disabling it wasn't a problem. Set the compulsion into her deep subconscious; Poppy or Dumbles will be able to undo it if you don't._

He stared at the note in shock; he'd know that scrawl anywhere. Patience exceeded, Hermione took the slip from his hands. "What in the world does this mean?"

"I thought it was perfectly clear." His eyes shot to the other side of the room, where an invisibility cloak was being pulled off of… himself.

"Harry?" Hermione flicked her eyes between the two of them. "You're not supposed to be seen by your past self. McGonagall stressed that during third year."

Future him shook his head. "Seeing yourself doesn't cause the universe to unravel or anything. The trick is to not be seen _unless_ you already know that you can travel back in time. Then you just have to ensure that the other you is really you and not an impostor."

"That's not hard to do. What did I and spiders have in common before Hogwarts?" he asked.

"We both lived in the cupboard under the stairs."

"You're you. Or me, rather." Only eight people knew that fact. Three were dead, one raised bulldogs, two were in the room, one was on her way to the Ravenclaw dorms, and the last was likely still in the Great Hall. "Thank goodness I enjoyed maths as much as I did; there wasn't much room for any other form of fun."

"Except I hated maths," the other Harry said with a smirk.

And only _one_ person knew that. An answering smirk appeared on his own face. "Can't blame me for double-checking. Is two hours enough time?"

"Would I say go back that far if it wasn't?"

"Good point."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Hermione shouted. "What in the world is going on?"

Future Harry sighed. "It's not that complicated. He's going to go back in time, mess with Umbridge, pass his younger self a note saying to go back in time, answer the younger self's identity question, and hopefully walk to the dorms and sleep with a minimum of trouble. I'll tell you if he succeeded in that last part tomorrow."

"Funny, very funny. Harry, you'll explain what this was all about in two hours." She moved her finger from pointing at him to the older him. "And here you are. Explain."

"He has to leave first."

"Why?!"

The Harry from the present grinned. "Because obviously I already did."

Hermione glared at them. "Just get this over with. I don't need _two_ of you around any longer than necessary."

"Dobby." The house elf appeared and looked at Harry. Then he turned his head to look at Harry. "Ignore him. I need you to bring me the time turner in my study and my invisibility cloak."

"Master, Dobby already bes bringing you your cloak." Dobby popped away.

"_Really_?" Harry turned to his counterpart. "Why didn't you get _your_ cloak before going back?"

The other him shrugged his shoulders and handed the cloak to him. "There can only be one instance of the Hallows at a time. I think it has to do with them being made by Death rather than men."

"So if I can't take it back, you're giving it to me… Why?"

"Because obviously I already did."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." He took the time turner from the newly returned elf and draped the cloak over his shoulders. Slipping the chain around his neck, he twisted the dial twice and watched the hourglass spin.

Everything around him distorted and twirled for a moment before returning to normal. He looked down at his very visible body. "Bloody future selves always have to be right. Dobby!"

After the elf brought him the cloak from this time, he slipped out of the room. Deciding to bespell Umbridge during the feast, he made his way up two flights of stairs to her office to see why he had had been there. Magesight allowed him to identify the lone warding on the door. _I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, if I can't trust myself…_ He applied the counter-charm and slowly cracked the door open.

"Don't worry, Cornelius; I'll make sure the nasty little blighters know their place. When I'm done with them, there won't be even a _hint_ of rebellion against the Ministry."

"_Just don't foul this up for me. The last thing I need is Dumbledore convincing people that You-Know-Who is back. Lucius is sure he's angling for my job, you know."_

"I know, dearie. You finish your work, and I will do mine. Do you want me to come back to the office afterward, say later tonight?"

"_NO! I mean, no, but thank you for asking, Dolores. I'll let you go back to what you were doing."_

Umbridge giggled to herself. "Oh, Cornelius, I'll get you eventually. Maybe when I'm done here, you'll finally let me get rid of that silly bint you married." She exited the room, frowning as she pulled the door closed. "Blasted castle's going to fall down around our ears one of these days."

Only after the toad was out of sight did Harry let out the breath he had been holding. "Great Merlin, not even Lestrange was that creepy." Opening the door again, he walked in an was immediately assaulted by pink. "Yeah, that's got to go."

Charming the walls a dull beige let him focus enough to poke around. He pulled out the drawers of her desk and quickly found a wooden box containing three long, black quills in the bottom-right one. With a grim smile, he tossed the box into the fireplace. "_Incendio_." The merry crackling of those vile instruments of torture raised his spirits immensely.

He next surveyed the plates hanging on one wall; as if they understood that they were in danger, the kittens decorating the porcelain scrambled to the edges. "Much as I would love to destroy these things, that would just warn Umbridge that something's wrong. Maybe something more subtle…" Thirty spells later, he turned his attention elsewhere. _How long will it take for her to realize her imagination isn't the reason she's seeing pictures of werewolves on her plates?_

A glance at his watch showed him that he had used up half an hour of his time; he wanted to get to the Great Hall so he could put the spell on Umbridge as soon as possible. Restoring the walls to their ghastly hue, he dashed off a note to himself, the original having been left in Hermione's hands, then left the room. He pulled the Hallow tighter about himself and shifted into his falcon form.

He had discovered an unusual trait of the artifact during the Third Voldemort War. The Animagus transformation caused whatever he was wearing to be absorbed so he didn't have to worry about coming back for it, but with few exceptions it also nullified whatever effect he had placed on his clothing. Donning Death's cloak, however, caused him to remain invisible and even removed the chance for it to slip off.

It took only minutes for him to return to the feast. He glided to the front of the staff table in the middle of the Sorting before resuming a bipedal shape; pointing his acacia wand at the woman's head, he pondered exactly what the compulsion should be. _I know she'll croak, but what should I designate as the trigger? Saying 'detention', certainly, and perhaps 'point' and 'punish'? That would prevent her from lashing out at the students, at least for a while. She threatened the staff with Fudge as often as Draco does Lucius, so 'Ministry', 'Minister', 'Cornelius', and 'Fudge'. 'Undersecretary', too, since she takes so much pride in it. 'Lies', 'dead', 'defense', 'Headmistress'…_ Remembering how she tried to curse him at the end of the year, he added the incantations for the Unforgivables as well.

Keeping all that in mind, he gazed unseen into her eyes, slipping his mind just the tiniest bit into the cesspool that was her own. A gentle twirling of his wand and soft whisper of "_Compulso_" launched the magic.

Compulsion charms were considered to be nothing more than a minor hazard; they were normally quite easy to fight off, and a simple _Finite Incantatem Mentis_ was all that was needed to purge them from the affected's mind. Harry, however, had learned never to fight fair and instead stacked the deck in his favor. The passive Legillimency he had employed, his natural talent for mental magics, the motion and incantation for one of the half-dozen spells he had mastered to the point of wandless and silent casting, the sheer power at his disposal, and a new wand adept at this branch of magic combined to force the command into the deep, dark recesses of her mind. From there, it would activate, forcing her to do nothing but croak until someone assisted her. The mental finishing charm would merely stop it until she said one of the trigger words again; actually removing it meant letting someone into the very center of her being, something he doubted she would ever permit.

Was it any wonder the Death Eaters had feared him? He had taken a charm taught at the end of second year and twisted it into a weapon as devastating as the Imperius.

The students suddenly applauded, dragging his attention back to the real world. Harry used the noise to cover his escape, pausing to slip his note into his younger self's pocket, and made his way out of the Hall to the library. He had a little over an hour before he had to meet Harry and Hermione, which meant plenty of time to visit the Restricted Section while Pince was stuck in the Great Hall.

* * *

Hermione stared at Harry as they walked to Gryffindor Tower. His family's cloak had fallen to the ground when the younger him vanished, allowing them to huddle under it and converse without anyone else being the wiser. "Merlin, that's quite a story to swallow."

"You don't believe me?" he asked, acting like he was hurt by her words.

"Of course I do. I've been at your side for fourteen years; I know exactly what you are capable of when you set your mind to it." She chewed her bottom lip slightly before continuing, "I just wonder how long it will hold."

"Several months at least, provided she lives that long. Spells seated in the subconscious are notoriously difficult to shake off," he assured her.

"So couldn't you, I don't know, hit her with enough compulsions that she supports us? Kind of like the Imperius but without the need for constant upkeep."

He shook his head. "No matter how much I overpowered it, the spell she's under is still a compulsion; it has a definite trigger and a definite effect, and the trick to it isn't that she can't fight off the effects but that it will constantly reactivate. To change her personality like you're suggesting would require months, maybe _years_, of work: viewing, removing, and altering her memories followed by gauging her responses in a systematic manner. I mean, I _could_ do it, but it would be obvious something was wrong when neither one of us showed up until after Easter, and that's assuming we weren't found out before I was through. No, if it was that easy, I'd remove Ron's jealous, Ginny's fangirl, and Molly's domineering natures. Merlin, I'd rewrite Dumbledore into the grandfather figure he wants us to think he is! Unfortunately, while magic can do a lot, you can't just wave your wand and change someone's personalities."

She nodded sadly. They approached the entrance to the Tower, and Harry pulled off the cloak. "Do you remember the password, Mione?"

"It had to do with Neville's cactus and being quiet. Mumble… mimble… _Mimbulus mimbletonia_!"

The Fat Lady, her pink dress frillier than Hermione recalled, nodded with a sly smile. "I was wondering why I hadn't seen you two yet, but it seems my question has been answered. In you get." The portrait swung out, granting them entrance.

"There you are!" Dean Thomas exclaimed. "The twins have been going on about how you two are together, but they're just fooling around again, right?"

"Mione love, shall we lay to rest any doubts about us?" Harry asked, a mischievous grin emerging.

Her eyes widened. "Don't you dare, Harry James —" He swept her into a dip, his lips pressing against hers and cutting off her words. With a mental sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and relaxed into the kiss. She wasn't a fan of gratuitous affection in public, instead preferring to keep their expressions of love to themselves, but it would be hypocritical to chastise him considering she had done the exact same thing on the platform at the start of the summer.

All good things must come to an end, however, and eventually they remembered their bodies needed air. Whistles and catcalls caught their attention, causing her to blush; this was exactly why she didn't generally engage in this behavior. She raised herself up to give him another kiss, though just a quick peck this time. "It's late, and we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"I know," Harry muttered. "Goodnight, love."

She smiled and walked up the stairs to the girls' dormitories, sure she would soon have company. Sure enough, a giggling Lavender and Parvati were right on her heels.

* * *

**Since we're talking about Death and his Hallows' powers, now's the perfect time for you to visit apAidan's page and read **_**Death and a Butterbeer Chaser, Hold the Cat**_**. And, you know, all the rest of his stuff, too.**

**Do yourselves a favor and don't think about temporal physics too hard; it just gives you a headache. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to have taken some aspirin.**

* * *

**It's amazing to me how many people on this site have seen the movie **_**Se7en**_**, especially since I know only a couple of people personally who ever have.**

**Wrathkal:** Ah, but stealing from Harry isn't something Dumbledore told Molly to do; that's her own greed coming through (hey, Ron had to get it from somewhere, right?). As implied in chapter 11, Dumbledore wants Harry's gold for _himself_. There are a number of plots surrounding Harry, and not all of them are connected…

**Topaz Dragon:** Hermione's rejection of Luna's creatures never made sense to me, either, though thankfully a number of authors have hit on that same point. You'd think after centaurs, skrewts, bowtruckles, and phoenixes, she'd get the idea that extremely little is impossible with magic. Sheesh, we're still discovering new species all the time in the real world!

**blackg:** Physically, Harry and Hermione are 15 and 16, respectively; mentally, they're 25 and 26. Harry said he had lived with the Dursleys for 16 years, which is canon counting from age 1 when he was dropped off to 17 when he came of age.

**Silently Watches out.**


	22. Knight Takes Rook

**Disclaimer:** Did we ever find out exactly what the Unspeakables were researching? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 22  
****Knight Takes Rook**

Harry awoke on the couch in the cold common room early the next morning. It had been eight years since he had slept in the Gryffindor dorms, and not only was he forced to sleep alone again, he had to deal with four other males filling the air with their snoring. _Neville's a nice guy, but Merlin can he give Ron a run for his money when it comes to noise level_, he thought as he shifted into a more comfortable position. He had finally given up sleeping in his four-poster as an impossible task at three o'clock or so, hence why he was in the common room.

_Not the best rest I've ever gotten, that's for sure, but there's no point going back to sleep. I'll just wait for Mione and Luna to wake up so we can get to work._

"Harry?" a familiar voice asked. He lifted his head to look at his lover. "What are you doing up so early?"

"Couldn't stand the snores."

Hermione nodded sympathetically. "Lavender and Parvati were up gossiping half the night. Sophie tried to get them to quiet down, but she was obviously less than effective."

"Who?" he asked, trying to recall a face to go with that name. "I don't remember anyone named Sophie."

She huffed and shook her head. "Honestly, Harry? It's not like we didn't share classes with her for six years. Sophie Roper, short brunette, baby-blue eyes, sat at the table next to ours in Potions every year?"

"Not ringing any bells."

"_Anyway_, McGonagall chose her to be the prefect after I turned the position down. I honestly don't understand what that woman's doing. Yes, I told her to find someone as undeserving as Ron, but I never thought she'd actually go through with it! Sophie's a wallflower; I don't think I heard her start a dozen conversations the entire time we were in school."

Harry shrugged, unsure of what he could add. "What's done is done. Do you want to stay around here for a while longer or get a head start on Rookwood's place?"

"Let's get it over with. Do you have any idea where Luna is at the moment? It wouldn't be right to leave her here while we pull this job."

"I'll check." Pulling the Marauders' Map out of his pocket, he activated it without removing his wand's tip from the parchment. "_Encuentras_ Luna Lovegood." The Map rustled before expanding on its own, excess material folding neatly at the edges. After a look at the swarm of jostling black dots, he cleared it with a muttered _'Mischief managed'_. "She's in the kitchens. Shall we?"

The trip down was uneventful, not overly surprising since the sun had risen only a few minutes earlier. When they approached a painting depicting a bowl of fruit, he reached up and quickly tickled the pair, and it squirmed before becoming a doorknob. Luna was easy to find once they entered; she was sitting at a table in the middle of the room, her head resting on the wooden surface while her hand gripped a steaming mug.

"I was wondering when I'd see you two today," she greeted as they sat next to her. She lifted her head and yawned. "How were your nights?"

"Fine, but what happened to you?" Hermione asked in concern. "You look exhausted."

Luna sighed, a faint smile on her lips. "I think I was a little too clever for my own good. During dinner, several of the other Ravenclaws got an early start on their normal game of _'Let's Laugh at Loony Lovegood'_, so I waited until Flitwick's normal first-of-the-year speech to pull Clyde out of his box. I may have underestimated just how many people would want to examine him."

"Let me guess… all of them?" Harry asked, his worry having dispersed at her explanation.

"It sure seemed like it. After they determined that he wasn't conjured, transfigured, a golem of some kind, or a necromantic construct — and yes, one of the seventh years _did_ know a charm to check for that, though I have no idea what a _'zombie apocalypse'_ is supposed to be — the first and second years wanted to pet him while the rest of the House pestered me with every question they could think of about his behavior, dietary needs, reproductive habits, and sleep patterns. Flitwick even asked if I would permit them to observe him for a year as a House research project!"

"Will you?"

"I'm not sure, Mione," the blonde said after a moment of thought. "On the one hand, I could use the data they collect to write the articles for my new column, leaving me more time to spend with you two. On the other…" She frowned. "I don't like the way Chang or her boot-lickers were glaring at me last night. After all, I just proved three years of their taunts to be nothing more than ignorant drivel; I really don't want to give them the chance to hurt him."

Harry and Hermione frowned as they thought. Finally, the brunette suggested, "If you do decide to let the other Claws watch him, why not ward a section of the common room so that no human but you can go there? That way he has a safe place to run to if he feels threatened."

"Except then he would never leave that corner. He's very shy."

"It's a start, though," he said. His eyebrows shot up as an idea came to him. "Luna, what about giving him a portkey?"

Luna quirked an eyebrow. "Would that work?"

"Well, the wards on the school only block people coming _in_; anyone who knows the spell can leave with one. Remove the 'notice me' charm on his collar, turn it into a portkey set to your home in case someone hurts him, then reapply the original charm and, I don't know, maybe a _Repello Inimicum_ to keep away anyone who wishes him harm."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "Just how did you learn so much about Hogwarts's wards, Mr. Potter?"

"Ah, well, er…" He looked anywhere but her as he gave up and muttered, "_Hogwarts, A History_. I got bored one day after working on the house."

She leapt from her seat. "Hah, I knew it! All this time, you had read it but kept making fun of me!"

"I wasn't making fun of you for reading the book," he rejoined. "I was mocking your obsession with it."

"I am _not_ obsessed."

He looked at her from over his glasses. "Hermione, you spent nearly eighty galleons in an auction buying a thirtieth edition from the sixteenth century. When the latest one was published, you were at Flourish and Blott's _two hours_ before they opened and almost ripped off the shopkeeper's fingers when he didn't hand it over fast enough for you. Yes, my dear, you are very much obsessed, but we love you anyway."

"Indeed we do." Luna drained her mug and handed it to a passing elf. "Well, what are we still doing around here? Time's a' wasting."

* * *

For all Hogwarts's claims as the _'safest place in Britain'_, the time-traveling trio had little difficulty sneaking out from within its walls.

Harry held his hand up, stopping the girls as they followed him through the narrow tunnel to Hogsmeade guarded by the one-eyed crone's statue. He whispered, "The ward boundaries are just ahead, but there's too much interference for me to check for more monitoring charms."

"Switch," Luna said just as quietly, sidling closer even as he moved backwards against the rough wall. She touched her wandtip to her temple. "A host of siege wards, anti-transport, Unplottable, Muggle-deceiving… Okay, I see them; eavesdropping on the left and proximity on the right, both a meter farther down. Fire on my mark."

Harry and Hermione raised their wands and aimed at the walls of the tunnel. At the blonde's soft _'Now'_, they silently cast finishing charms at their unseen targets. They paused a beat as Luna watched. "Harry, a couple of degrees down. Mione, just a _smidgeon_ more left. Again." She smiled and pulled her wand from her head. "And there we go."

"Wonderful," he said as they walked the ten feet necessary to pass the wardline; now they could leave and arrive without any hint of their activities reaching Dumbledore. Picking up a stone, he waved his wand over it and incanted, "_Portus_. While you two were on vacation, I spent a couple of hours in the Ministry's Hall of Records looking up coordinates for as many of the homes we want to hit as I could find. Luckily, Rookwood's place was one of them."

His lovers nodded and laid their hands on the rock. Grimacing, Harry tapped it with his wand, causing the familiar yet still unpleasant sensation of his guts being ripped out through his navel. He had never liked portkeys; not only were they nauseating, he associated them with the bad memories of Voldemort's resurrection and Sirius's death. He much preferred flying or Apparating, but the first method would take far too long while the second required having been at the destination before, so whirling like a top it was.

At least it wasn't the Floo. He _still_ hadn't found a way to avoid being shot out like a cannon.

They slammed into the ground heavily, taking a moment to calm their stomachs. Looking at their surroundings, Hermione turned to him. "Despite his name, I don't think Rookwood lived in the trees, and if he _did_, I doubt he has anything we want to steal."

"I brought us a klick east of his manor," he replied as he climbed to his feet before offering the others a hand. "Figured it was better to have a bit of a walk than randomly bounce off his wards or, even worse, land in the middle of a deathtrap like the Lestranges'."

The brunette winced and nodded; she had heard about his and Luna's trip to that property. Blowing themselves up would be a terrible way to start the day.

The trees thinned out as they walked, and five minutes later, the magesight charm on his glasses showed him the snowy dome denoting their target peeking over a hill. He pointed and said, "Almost there. Just a short jaunt that way." Another ten minutes elapsed before they could see the mansion itself.

"Of all the houses we've hit, I have to say I like this one the most," Hermione remarked. Harry nodded in agreement; the ivy covering the warm red brick and the wide-open lawn lent it a welcoming facade and gave no hint that it belonged to a genocidal sociopath. "Hopefully his good taste extends to the interior, too."

They continued their trek, growing more careful as they came closer. He took his mirror earring, space-expanded sack, and the roll of wardpicks he had earlier requested Dobby bring him out of his pockets and put the earring on. "So… who's doing what?"

Hermione shrugged. "Luna will examine the wards, I'll knock out the ones I know the counters for, and you use the picks and wardtap. I suppose the last is in your bag?" She smiled when he reached in and pulled out the device. "Excellent. Luna, if you would be so kind? We have a murdering sack of shite to plunder."

"I love it when you talk dirty," Luna said in a faux-sultry growl. She returned her wand to her head. "First up is a Cornish Apparation ward, followed by Muggle-repelling and a 'trust-me' ward. That's what, four for six in having at least one kind of mental inhibition ward?"

"At least we know that dark wizards don't trust each other any more than they do the rest of us," he laughed.

Hermione shook her head fondly at their tomfoolery and wove her wand in a graceful dance. Ward-breaking as a whole didn't rely on incantations; his girls' research in the previous timeline had found that the wand motions countered the runes on the wardstone and gradually introduced increasing interference into the entire system. After enough runes were negated, the ward would naturally collapse under its own weight. If they were part of a full curse-breaker team, there would be several other people around the boundary to stabilize the structure while she worked so she could nullify the entire script and prevent rebound, but they weren't. This setup would have to do.

A flash of white blinded him as the ward failed. He pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes rapidly; when he replaced them, he spotted an old man hobbling out of the house. "Er, Mione? Don't look now, but I think I _may_ have accidentally brought us to the wrong place."

"Oh, this is going to be awk — move!" She and Luna leapt out of the path of the pale green curse streaking through where they had been standing a moment before. "No, we're in the right place. Who else besides Death Eaters or their sympathizers uses the Killing Curse as soon as they see visitors?!"

Harry ducked behind the thick marble wall Hermione conjured. "Well, this makes things more difficult. Do you think there's anyone else inside the house?"

"Doubtful, they'd have come out and started helping him already."

He took a deep breath and let it out, forcing himself to just _not think_ about the curses hitting the wall, the stone crumbling, the danger they were in. A crisp flick of his wand conjured a metal spike a foot long and bearing a sharp point. Grabbing it with his free hand, he concentrated and quietly Apparated to the side of the property, just outside the wardline. The old man was too busy flinging Unforgivable after Unforgivable at the damaged wall to notice, giving Harry a clean view of his back. He aimed the spike at their attacker through the now-pale-yellow haze of the defenses, pointed his wand at the rear of the weapon, and shouted, "_Depulso_!"

The elder Pureblood turned around just in time to catch the projectile with his chest.

"He's down!" Harry called even as he kept his wand directed at the body. It wouldn't be the first time he had been in a fight where one of his enemies had waited at Death's door just long enough to launch a final attack.

His watchfulness proved to be for the best; only a few seconds later, a soft pop heralded the arrival of a house elf. The elf looked at its master for a few moments, looked at him, looked back the old man, and nonchalantly shrugged its shoulders before jerking one ear painfully. Obviously the Rookwoods didn't treat the help any better than the Malfoys had.

"Excuse me," he called, catching the elf's attention. "Is he still alive?"

The elf nodded.

"Could you put him in stasis, please? I promise to make it worth your while." The elf nodded its head again and snapped its fingers, causing a blue sheen to coat the man. Harry smiled. "Thank you! We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Just what are you planning, Harry Potter?" Hermione panted as she and Luna came running up to him. She held out his bag and tools.

He just smirked before taking them and selecting the wardpick for the Muggle-repelling ward. This was one ward that they wouldn't mind leaving up, but so long as it was active, they couldn't get to anything behind it. That was one advantage of using a pick; because it only disabled wards for a short time, they could break the defenses they didn't want and keep those they did.

Channeling some magic through the enchanted sliver of copper, he moved it towards the ward until he felt resistance. He brushed the surface of the ward with the pick, and his magesight showed the ward flicker briefly before returning to its normal state. Scraping this time caused the flicker to last longer; a third stroke, and the ward faded entirely. "Muggle-repelling's down. Can you counter the next one, or do I need to set the tap?"

"I can handle this one. Luna, anything I should watch out for behind it?"

"Nope, just a metamorph-reverting ward," the blonde replied with a grin after recasting the magesight charm. "Hit it, baby."

Contrary to their expectations, breaking down Rookwood's wards took longer than expected. Through either typical wizarding stupidity or an incredible display of common sense, there were a large number of redundancies built into the scheme. Three portkey, two mind-weakening, four lethal, and a grand total of _six_ different Apparation wards; it was far and away the best defended manor they had come across. Finally, though, Hermione broke the last barrier. "Alright, we can step over the property line without having our brains vanished to the Ministry. On the bright side, we now know where the Department of Mysteries got the ones in their tank."

"Wonderful," Harry said. He walked to the pair on the lawn, then knelt in front of the small being. "Hello, my good elf. Might I have your name?"

The elf blushed fiercely and in a squeaky voice answered, "Floppy, sir." She — Harry knew this only thanks to his recent exposure to Winky — lowered her eyes and shyly toyed with the tassels of the curtain she used as a toga. "How can Floppy be of service to sir and madams?"

"Well, you can answer a question for me first," he replied in a gentle tone. She looked up warily. "Do you honestly like working for the Rookwoods?"

Floppy violently shook her head before reaching up with both hands and wrenching her namesake ears. Scowling at the Rookwood by his feet so he wouldn't distress the little elf, he asked, "What if I could offer you a way out? Would you take it, even if it meant being given clothes?" He glanced at her again, and the pitiful, pleading gaze he got was answer enough.

"Hermione, Luna, get a couple of feet behind Floppy and be ready to remove the stasis charm. Floppy, I'm going to free you, but first I need to memory charm you to protect our identities, okay?"

The elf turned big eyes on him. "Yous can memory charm house elves?"

"Yep. Now, go ahead and take a last look at your soon-to-be ex-master." He rounded behind her and aimed his wand. "Mione, lift the charm. _Obliviate_. _Imperio_."

Floppy shook her head, then stared at the old man. "Master Julius? Whats you doing on the ground?"

_Give Floppy your slipper. Free her._

"Floppy," the now-named Julius croaked. "Hand me my slipper." Once she had done that, he thrust it roughly back into her hands. "You are no longer my elf. Get out of my sight."

She raised the fuzzy red slipper to eye-level. "Floppy… Floppy is _free_." Turning to her former master, she leaned over and slapped him across the face with his own shoe. "Floppy been wanting to do that for years," she cheered joyfully. With a loud snap, the house elf was gone.

Harry smiled and turned around, only for Hermione's haughty expression to wipe the look off his face. He sighed. "I know you want to. Just go ahead and say it."

"I told you. I told you! ElevenMerlin-be-damned_ YEARS_ I've been saying that there were other house elves who wanted to be free, that Dobby wasn't a once in a lifetime freak occurrence, and guess what? _There are!"_ Her arms shot into the sky, and she screamed to the heavens, "Vindication is mine!"

He groaned. "Yes, yes, we were wrong, you were right. Woo-hoo." Under his breath, he muttered, "SPEW was still a terrible name."

"Care to repeat that, Harry?"

"Nope!" He pulled Luna in between himself and the growling brunette. Hermione was generally less likely to maul him if she had to go through the other girl first. "Shouldn't we get started on robbing the place?"

"Yes, we probably should. I'll still get you back for that comment about _S.P.E.W._, though."

Luna cleared her throat, interrupting their banter. "Not to be a, er, _nudge_, but what do we do about him?" She pointed over his shoulder at the wheezing Rookwood.

"Put him back in stasis," Harry said immediately.

Hermione looked askance at him. "Why? Let's just let him die. No muss, no fuss."

He walked over to the downed figure and ripped away the left sleeve of his robe. The hated skull and snake stared back at them. "It shows up pitch black with magesight, even through the other charms on these clothes, which means it's bloody strong. Even after two wars, we still have no idea what all the Dark Mark is capable of; is Voldemort alerted when a Death Eater dies? With nothing else keeping him busy at the moment, will he come to investigate why one of his unknown henchmen was killed? If we lay a stasis charm on Rookwood, on the other hand, we can take it off and kill him on our way out of here, protecting us from any consequences that we don't know about."

"Good point." Once Hermione placed the man in suspension, they made their way to the open door of the manor. "Split up and take everything that isn't nailed down just like the other times?"

"Sounds good. Paired Potter pretties," Luna added, using the phrase that automatically linked all three mirror earrings. With a bright smile, she skipped past the stairwell to the rear of the ground floor.

Harry gave Hermione his own grin. "I take first floor, you take second?"

"Fine by me."

* * *

"_Kafsi velakia_." Ten heads turned at the words, only to catch facefuls of flame. They screamed as best they could before being reduced to ash.

Harry calmly followed his Firebird Volley hex into the sitting room, surveying the destroyed portraits. The last thing he and the girls needed was some long-dead ancestor having another frame to run to and alerting their enemies about their actions. He summoned and bagged the gold frames, then did the same with the furniture. "You know, we need to come up with some disguises now that we're going to be raiding occupied houses."

"_Copy that, love,"_ Luna replied. _"Do you have any ideas?"_

He thought quietly for a moment. "If we only used glamours or transfiguration, a lucky hit or even the ambient magic should we need to fight our way out could dispel it and reveal our identities. What about an outfit of some kind, something to cover us almost entirely, possibly charmed to be unsummonable and to hide what the little skin we'll show really looks like?"

"_That could work. I say we stitch a few runes into the fabric to keep them from being torn, as well. Actually, there's a couple of spell formulae that were discussed in my apprenticeship that I've been meaning to try out; this sounds like the perfect opportunity."_

"Maybe you should take charge of the project, then."

"_I guess I so, might even be rather fun. Which color would you prefer for your robe, heliotrope or mauve?"_ He spluttered, eliciting a giggle from the blonde. _"Joking, joking. There you are! Harry, I just found the Rookwoods' Gringotts key, so don't worry about combing through the house looking for it. Anything interesting on your end?"_

"Not yet. So far it looks like the first floor was the real 'family area'. Let me check this one." He opened the door in front of him and sighed. "No, another old nursery."

A loud shout interrupted their conversation. _"Luna, Harry, get your butts up here!"_

Harry was off like a shot, sprinting down the long hall to the stairs. Throwing a hand out, he latched onto the banister and swung around it to preserve his momentum as he headed higher. Pounding steps below indicated Luna was not far behind him.

The two took only a minute to find Hermione. She was in the middle of a large — and empty, he noted — library, sheets of parchment gripped tightly in her hands as she read furiously. Seeing that she was unharmed, Harry scowled. "You better not have scared us like that just because you found some rare book."

"It's rare, all right, but it's not a book." The brunette turned to them and waved the parchment. "Say whatever you want about little Gusty, but he was a _meticulous_ note-taker. These," she laid the sheets on a desk almost completely covered in dust and said notes, "are all from the Ministry. Research, blueprints, ward schemes, blackmail, high-profile individuals' routines; I think Voldemort was preparing for a full take-over before he came after you in '81."

His eyes widened. "Okay, I'm sorry for blowing up at you. This is a real gold mine. What was he researching while on the clock?"

She snickered at that. "That's an ironic choice of words. It looks like his main focus was time, though he also did a stint in the Prophecy Room in late '80; my guess is that he was trying to get to the rest of the prophecy. The reason I called you over, though, is because I now know what convinced Voldemort to go from hiding from faeries to _hunting_ them."

"The Unspeakables are studying the Fae?" Luna gasped, racing over and digging through the pile.

"They _had been_, but not since 1957. Apparently, someone got the bright idea to try stealing faery powers, only to be tracked down and, for lack of a better word, _mutilated_ in his office by the Winter Lady a week later."

_Winter Lady, Winter Lady, why is that name so familiar?_ Harry racked his brain for a moment before finding the relevant memory. "Wait, the same faery whose death prompted Lilith to bring us to this timeline?"

"Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner," Hermione commented dryly. "The Department at the time hypothesized that the Winter Lady was the Queen's chief enforcer, tasked with protecting the other faeries by any means necessary. Of course, it was just a theory; no one wanted to put their neck on the line and test it."

He rolled his eyes. "Gee, I wonder why not."

"Does it really matter at the moment?" Luna asked, summoning all the parchment as well as the desk into her bottomless bag. "Was there anywhere else you haven't gone on this floor, Mione? I'm done downstairs."

"Me, too," he added.

Hermione shook her head. "No, I decided I had better save the library for last. I, um, figured you'd have to come rescue me when it was time to go." Both of her lovers grinned at her blush. Harry wrapped one arm around her shoulders, then his other around Luna, and together the three of them descended the stairs.

The blonde stopped as they reached the foyer. "Hold up, I need to leave our calling card. _Relinquo nostri signum_," she incanted, swirling her wand at the left wall. "Well? What do you think?"

Harry looked up and down at it. The image was rather simple, just a black hood seen at an oblique angle. Sticking out was a red, furry muzzle bearing a foxy grin; as he examined it, he could swear the hairs were moving slightly. After a moment, the fox's lips twitched, widening the smirk a touch before it returned to normal. "This is the same style as your painting in the Rook, isn't it?"

She clapped her hands and nodded. "Yes it is. Like it?" She gazed up at him with her silver eyes.

"Love it."

Hermione nodded with a smile. Her efforts appreciated, Luna pulled them out the front door.

"Oh, yeah," he said as they spotted the body still lying on the lawn. "I totally forgot about him."

Luna pursed her lips in thought. "We could always transfigure him into dog treats and feed him to some strays. That'd be an appropriate end, don't you think?"

"That pun was truly awful," Hermione groaned.

"Yes, it really did stink."

"Harry! Don't encourage her!"

He laughed as he walked to Julius Rookwood. "You two go ahead; I'll catch up in a second." Twin cracks sounded behind him, then he squatted to look the old man in the eyes, his smile replaced by a deathly serious mien. "I know you can't hear or see a thing like this, but I thought I'd give you a heads up anyway. When you arrive in Hell, stick around for a bit; we'll be sending Augustus and all your little friends to join you soon enough."

Standing, he pointed his wand at Rookwood's neck. "_Diffindo_." A moment later, the only moving thing there was a severed head rolling towards the house.

* * *

**The bit with memory charming house elves is pure **_**Black Comedy**_**. That story's likely to be referenced throughout this fic.**

* * *

**Purple 'N' Blue Wings:** Do you remember how I said that there were differences between the various timestreams? In this one, the eldest Greengrass sibling is _David_, not Daphne.

**T1mmy:** The way I see it, the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office probably isn't the best-paid department in the Ministry; the only one in worse shape from a payroll perspective would be the Goblin Liason office. Molly needed the money from Harry's vault to pay for tuition, food, replacement uniform robes, potion ingredients, and books; dress robes Ron was only going to wear once weren't high on her list of priorities.

**Silently Watches out.**


	23. Attitude Adjustment

**Disclaimer:** Were the Ravenclaw bullies ever punished for how they treated Luna? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 23  
****Attitude Adjustment**

"Well, that's it for the easy jobs," Harry said as the door to the Room of Requirement faded away behind him. Hermione and Luna had already seated themselves on a circular couch, the same one the Room had created before they had left for their summer vacation. "Five empty manors and one occupied solely by an old man. From now on, we're going to have to be extremely careful on our heists in terms of both hiding our identities and protecting ourselves from unseen spells should we get caught redhanded again. If Rookwood had ambushed us rather than attacking head-on, we might not have walked out of there alive."

"I thought being careful went without saying considering we're dealing with a band of terrorists," commented Hermione.

"Better to say it unnecessarily than assume it's understood and be wrong." Luna scooted over to give him room to sit between the girls, then cuddled into him. She continued, "I thought a little about possible disguises, and I was wondering if either of you would mind them being made of silk? It's lightweight, and Acromantula silk has a decent magical resistance. Dragonhide would be better from a defensive standpoint, but lining our robes with that would be expensive even with our resources, not to mention illegal since we're not Ministry personnel."

Hermione's eyes lit up. "What about making liners from basilisk scales? It's not like we don't have enough of it lying around." Her smile dropped at Luna's guffaw.

"Basilisk? Seriously? Mione, basilisks aren't hard to kill with magic because their hide is especially resistant, but because it's so thick. Think of it as quality versus quantity. Dragons have to be light enough to fly, so having very resistant scales means they don't need particularly thick skin. Giant snakes, however, don't have that problem; from the way Harry described it, Salazar's familiar probably had hide a good foot thick. If we made armor from that had even the resistance of silk, it would be so bulky we could never walk in it."

"Moving on," Harry interjected when Hermione's face reddened in embarrassment. "The defensive properties of whatever disguises we choose will be less important than hiding who we are. We can dodge curses, but we _can't_ risk exposing ourselves."

"Very true. So yes to the silk idea?"

He nodded. "We also need to perform surveillance on our targets from now on. I know this timeline has been very similar to our own so far, but between Greengrass being a guy and another Rookwood living in the house, it's clear that there are some differences. Next time we get caught with our pants around our ankles because of an assumption, there might be more serious consequences than just one old man throwing curses at us. We have a time turner, so if we coordinate properly, we should all be able to ride it backwards and observe the families to make sure we have our information straight."

"Hold that thought, Harry," Hermione said. She turned to Luna. "Could you pull Rookwood's desk out of your sack? I want to check something."

Luna summoned the desk from her extended-space bag, and the two girls began rifling through drawers. After a few seconds, Hermione moved back with a smile; the reason was apparent as she displayed the tiny hourglass filled with red sand. "Just as I suspected. With all the extracurricular research he did for Voldemort in addition to his real work, he had to have one of these, so we have _two_ time turners to use."

"Perfect," Harry replied with a grin. "I think we should leave them both in the Manor and just call an elf when we need one; that way we won't run the risk of them being found and 'confiscated'."

"Good point, love. Dobby?" She knelt on the floor when the devoted elf popped in, the two now at eye-level. "Could you take this back home with you and put it with the other one?"

"Dobby can do that, Missy Hermy Grangy ma'am," Dobby said, causing Harry to choke down his laughter. He had completely forgotten about that order, but he was ever so glad his loyal manservant hadn't. The gobsmacked look on Hermione's face was priceless!

_Now I just need to buy or steal a camera and a pensieve to take a photo of this, and I'll be set. Too bad we couldn't bring our photo album back with us._

The brunette flushed. "Please don't call me that, Dobby. Hermione is fine."

"Dobby be sorry, Missy Hermy Grangy ma'am, but Master Harry says you can't bes changing it." Oblivious to the girl's pink cheeks turning red with outrage, Dobby disappeared. Luna glanced between her two lovers and darted off the couch to the other half of the room before Harry could reach out to pull her between them again.

Hermione grinned nastily. "So, _Master Harry_, would you mind explaining that _very_ interesting comment Dobby made?"

"Er, well… Merlin's shorts, is that a first edition copy of _Hogwarts, A History_?" He pointed behind her; when she whipped around, he leapt over the back of the couch.

Hermione's eyes blazed when they returned to him. Striving to bore a hole in his conjured wall with her glare alone, she snapped, "Dammit Luna, stop laughing!"

"I can't help it," the blonde wheezed through her giggles. "I mean, you actually fell for that! I saw it with my own two eyes, and I still can't believe it!"

The incurable bookworm of the trio turned her burning gaze on Luna for a moment before sighing. "I truly, seriously hate you both. There are days I wonder why I didn't just run to Australia with my parents when I had the chance." She dropped back to the couch with a huff of indignation.

"Because as much as we can irritate you — intentionally or not — you love us too much to ever really hate us," he rejoined, dismissing his barrier and joining her. A long moment passed before she relented and leaned into him. "You know we're only taking the mickey out of you, just like with my little prank with Dobby."

"It's not as funny when it's me he's giving the long title to."

"I disagree, but I know what you mean. I'll tell Dobby to go back to calling you _'Missy Hermy'_."

A pop sounded in front of them, and from empty air they heard the elf's voice saying, "Yes, Master Harry."

Harry blinked in surprise, a move mimicked by his lovers. "Well, that's different." He and Hermione looked to Luna for an explanation, but the former-now-current Ravenclaw simply shook her head.

"I'm not an expert on house elves; this is just as surprising to me as it is to you. Maybe they always keep one ear on their masters so they can hear when they're called?" she volunteered weakly.

"Only one way to find out. How right is she, Dobby?"

Another pop. "Missy Lunie be very wise." Harry smiled, his mind whirling with possibilities.

"You know, why don't we ask him and Winky to do some of the reconnaissance?" Hermione wondered out loud. "It could give them a break from repairing the Manor."

"Good idea. Dobby, you and Winky watch the Greengrass family for the next couple of weeks and record their schedules as best you can. If either of you think you're in danger, leave there immediately and report to one of us as soon as we're alone." There was no response, so Harry turned to the girls. "Neither of you have a problem robbing them next, do you?"

Twin feral grins were his only answer.

* * *

Luna entered the Ravenclaw common room to find it a beehive of activity. _Actually, that was insulting and completely untrue, now that I think about it; bees may be busy, but their frenzy is at least organized and purposeful._ Snagging the sleeve of an older student, she asked, "What's got everyone in such a tizzy?"

The boy looked slightly down at her and blanched. "Um, Cho and her bunch broke into your room about fifteen minutes ago. A couple of seconds later they started screaming, and some people went up to help them while others ran to Professor Flitwick." He dropped his eyes at her glare.

"So, you're saying that Chang's bitches decided to go through my things — _again_ — and no one tried to stop them? That's the gist of it, right?" She stomped to the stairs. "Gryffindors may charge in without a plan, but at least they take action rather than standing around like spineless cowards!"

All the gormless spectators standing in the hallway scurried to the walls as she strode past, her face frozen in a stony expression none of them had ever seen before. The Ravenclaw dormitories were organized so all students had their own small, private room, probably to prevent each students' ever-growing book collection from spilling into another's space. Following the plaques on the doors, Luna threw open the one that had her name on it and stalked inside.

Three girls were hanging upside down in midair, short arcs of lightning flitting about their robes and skin. She had to work hard at suppressing the malicious smile that threatened to spill out as her tormentors spasmed from the constant shocks. "Couldn't even go a full twenty-four hours, could you? Practically as soon as I've left the dorms, you're trying to steal my belongings. The problem, girls, is that you are _predictable_. Well, childish and stupid, too, but predictable is more relevant at the moment."

"Ms. Lovegood?" She turned her attention to the diminutive professor standing only a few feet from her. "Would you mind letting them down? I have already tried to remove the spells on them, but something is interfering."

"I _do_ mind, actually. She and her cronies have been hiding my things throughout the castle for three years now; I think I'm entitled to a little payback."

"Ms. Lovegood…"

"Fine, fine." She walked to the foot of the bed where her trunk lay and tapped a brass plate above the lock with her wand. Immediately the Ankle Noose and Static Cling hexes ended, dropping the three bullies onto their heads; since their bodies were still stiff, all they could do was moan. Luna smirked as she tucked the ebony focus behind her ear.

Flitwick sighed. "Was that really necessary?"

"You said to let them down, I let them down. That you failed to specify exactly _how_ I should do so is your fault."

"You cannot take justice into your own hands, Ms. Lovegood. If Ms. Chang or her friends have been stealing from you, you should have come to me so we could sort it out."

"Like that would have really helped," she rejoined. "I had no proof that she had done anything, so it would be my word against hers. Every single person in this House has, at one point or another, made it clear that they would take her side over mine, so even if I _had_ caught her redhanded, she would have a cast-iron alibi. No, it's better that I deal with this in my own way; at least now I can be sure that anyone else trying to cause me problems will have a reason not to."

Before Flitwick could say anything more, she levitated the three other girls and guided them down the hallway. A flick of her wand dropped them in the middle of the common room. "For all who think to continue the _delightful_ little tradition of making my life here a living hell, I'm going to give you a quick word of warning. These idiots tried to break into my trunk; they'll probably stop shaking in a couple of hours and regain the ability to walk a few after that. The next person who tries it will need to be carried to Madam Pomfrey for help. The person after _that_ will spend quite a bit of time in St. Mungo's Spell Damage Ward.

"I don't think I need to elaborate on what will happen to the fourth person who messes with my things. Suffice it to say that there won't be much left for the Healers to work with," she hissed. She waded into the mass of first and second years to reclaim her snorkack from the arms of a wide-eyed little girl. Walking back up the stairs, she turned around and surveyed the silent room. "And just so you know, tampering with the wards on my trunk in an attempt to bypass them will automatically activate them at a lethal level. I was your punching bag for years, but no longer; now I'm looking forward to doing some punching of my own."

She addressed the professor again as she passed him. "I don't have an answer for you just yet about whether the House can observe Clyde. Part of it will be based on how many _geniuses_ I have to scrape off the walls in the next week or two." With that, she stomped to her room and slammed the door.

_Did they really think I'd let five years of their taunting slide, even if they only remember three of those years?_, she thought darkly as she stroked her pet's side. _Not a chance, boys and girls. You owe me quite a few pounds of flesh._

* * *

Harry dropped onto the bench running along one side of the Gryffindor table in the Great hall. He, Hermione, and Luna had spent the weekend trying to re-acclimate themselves to being around a swarm of irrational adolescents, but they soon discovered that it was pointless. Whether it was the ten-year age difference with the accompanying life experience, the two wars they had fought in stripping away their innocence, or some other factor they couldn't think of, there was no way the trio would be able to reconnect with their 'contemporaries' in any meaningful way.

It was probably a good thing they never planned to blend in with the crowd. Hide their true knowledge and abilities, yes; pretend to care about teenage drama, _no_.

"Cheer up," Luna remarked as she sat on his right side and Hermione slumped into his left, still half asleep. "Today's just going to massively suck."

"You and I clearly have different definitions for _'cheer up'_," he half-joked. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he continued, "I remember this year, and Mondays were truly awful." Binns, Snape, Trelawney, and then Umbridge; just how he wanted to start off his week.

She snorted and replied at the same volume. "I might have you beat in that department." The schedule she laid on the table was already color-coded, and she tapped a finger against the two blocks at the end of the day highlighted in red. "I finished three of four years for my Spell-Crafting Mastery, remember? Do you think I _want_ to return to basic Arithmancy? Even worse, Vector pays too much attention to her students for me to just bring in a book. I am going to be bored out of my skull."

He nodded; looking at it from that perspective, her day would be horrid, too, only in a different way. The classes he would attend were below his level, certainly, but he had never pursued a Mastery, in fact hadn't technically finished Hogwarts. His last act of formal education had been to take a single NEWT, mostly for Hermione's peace of mind. To minimize stress, he had chosen Defense Against the Dark Arts.

It should go without saying that he aced the exam.

"Harry!"

He turned at the call and spotted a tall girl with chocolate skin hurrying his way. "Angelina. What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"Do you need the same lecture I gave Fred and George a couple of years ago about disrespecting a girl's underwear?" she shot back with a smile. "In all seriousness, though, I do need to talk to you."

"Pull up a seat, then, and lay your problems on dear old Uncle Harry."

She did so, thanking Luna when the blonde passed her a goblet of juice. "You probably don't know it, but McGonagall made me Quidditch captain."

"I suspected that would be the case. You're the oldest and most senior of us, after all."

"Yes I am, and don't you forget it. Anyway, we need a new Keeper now that Oliver's left. Tryouts are on Friday at five o'clock, and I want the whole team there, all right? That way we can see how the new person will fit in."

"Friday at five, got it." He paused as he remembered who had won the position last time. "Any idea who will show up? I expect someone's said _something_ about it already."

The older girl grimaced. "Cormac McLaggen is the only one I know of for now; he heard me talking to Alicia about it this morning. I hope he doesn't make it, though. He's an absolute prat and a complete braggart."

"Then don't put him on the team. If he's going to clash with everyone else, it doesn't matter how well he performs. Besides," he grinned, "normally those who brag about themselves all the time don't have the skills to back it up."

Angelina laughed and departed. After a few moments, Hermione, her eyes still closed, offered quietly, "I could take care of McLaggen if you'd like? I doubt he'll be any harder to confound than he was sixth year."

"Don't worry about it," he replied. "I'm not planning to miss the tryouts this time. There's no way I'm going to spend any more time with Ron than necessary, even if that means rigging the system."

Said boy chose that moment to enter the hall. Spotting them, he hustled over, ignorant of the puddle of pumpkin juice in his path. He set his foot square in it and slipped, spinning him around so that he slammed face-first into a golden plate on the table with a cringe-worthy crack before continuing to the cobblestone floor. The Slytherins laughed uproariously, and there was a smattering of chuckles from the other three Houses as well.

Luna blinked twice in surprise. "You know, as long as the Dire Misfortune Curse is still on him by then, I don't think you'll need to do anything else."

* * *

"Settle down," Snape said with a sneer, shutting the door behind him.

Harry fought his snort down. Looking at the situation from an adult's perspective, it was easy to see that Severus Snape was not just a bully; he was a pompous drama queen, a full-blown diva. He liked to swish around the dungeons like they were his private fiefdom, terrifying little children to prove to himself that he had some kind of power. When he wasn't doing that, he boosted his ego by portraying his spying as the feat of some tragic hero to the Order. This was, of course, if he could spare some time from satisfying his grudge against a man dead for a decade and a half by hurling degradation against that man's son, the child of the woman Snape was obsessed with.

One couldn't view another's memories without learning something about him, and sorting through Snape's during the Battle of Hogwarts had left Harry nauseous. That Dumbledore knew all this and still trusted Snape meant he could not be trusted himself. The old man was either senile, evil, or just plain crazy.

Harry personally preferred option d, all of the above.

Still, he listened to the bat's speech, waiting for a moment perfect for some derogatory comment of his own.

"Before we begin today's lesson, I think it appropriate to remind you that next June, you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions." _All of which we taught ourselves, because you certainly can't_, Harry thought acerbically. "Moronic though some of this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to scrape an 'acceptable' in your OWL, or suffer my… displeasure." The pallid man looked pointedly at Neville, who gulped in fear.

Leaning closer to Hermione, Harry whispered loudly, "You'd think a student's boggart being a teacher would be considered a sign that something was very wrong here." She nodded in agreement.

Snape's nostrils flared as he overheard them, not that they had taken any pains to avoid that. "After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me. I take only the very best into my NEWT Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying good-bye." His glare turned to Harry, and his lip curled into another sneer.

Refusing to miss this opportunity, Harry just smiled back brightly and waved his fingers up and down in a childish 'bye-bye' gesture.

"Potter! Twenty points from Gryffindor for your insolence!"

"Wow," he stage-whispered to his lover, "when's the last time he took points from me without me having to open my mouth?"

"Hmm… the final Potions class of last year, I think," she replied with a faux-thoughtful frown, complete with a finger tapping her chin.

He sighed. "Oh, not as impressive as I hoped."

"Another fifty points from both of you!"

"Thank you, sir!" Hermione cheered. "I don't think I've ever gotten fifty points in one go before."

"Er, Hermione, he was _taking_ points, not giving them," Lavender breathed from the table behind them.

"We know," he said, "but since it's physically impossible for him to award points when they're due, we just have to content ourselves with irking him every chance we get."

Snape had turned a puce color that reminded Harry strongly of his dead uncle. Surprisingly, the Death Eater managed to push his fury down and ground out, "Today we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: the Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation. Be warned; if you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients, you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing." He flicked his wand at the blackboard, revealing the directions, all of which were written in a cramped hand. "You have an hour and a half. Well? Get to it!"

Harry rolled his eyes as he gathered ingredients. This potion was not that difficult when allowed time to actually read and understand the recipe, though being capable of ignoring the overgrown bat pacing the room like a rabid dog in a cage helped immensely as well. For all the mystique Snape couched it in, Potions was really little different from cooking, something he had become familiar with when he was six. Had he learned the subject from a different instructor, he likely could have done well and even enjoyed it, but things hadn't turned out like that. Instead of a pleasurable creative outlet, he considered it a chore, one he passed off to Hermione whenever possible since she needed the practice for her Healing Mastery.

"A light silver vapor should now be rising from your potion," Snape called with ten minutes to go.

Harry double-checked his cauldron; the steam was rising in shiny ringlets, and the liquid itself was the palest gold. The potion wasn't perfect — it technically should be so lightly tinted as to appear clear at first glance — but Hermione had once relayed an important lesson she learned from her teacher in the first year of her apprenticeship: perfect potions were naturally most effective, but a dozen good potions were always preferred to a single flawless one. The loss in potency was so small as to be inconsequential from a practical perspective.

Unfortunately, Snape was both a 'perfectionist' and an academic. "Potter, what is this supposed to be?" he asked, ladling a portion out and letting it flow back into the cauldron. The Slytherins in the front of the room looked up; they normally got almost as much of a kick out of Snape denigrating him as the bat himself did.

Too bad only one person present knew the script had changed.

"The Draught of Peace, _sir_," Harry replied as he resisted rolling his eyes. _How are you going to play this, Snape? More importantly, are you ready for the fallout?_

Snape sneered. "Tell me, can you read?"

"Considering that I would have been hard-pressed to pass the first four years of Hogwarts without that skill, I certainly hope so."

His dry comment caught Snape by surprise, but the greasy man continued undaunted. "Read the fifth line of the instructions, Potter."

With a sigh, he drew his wand and conjured a light breeze to clear away the multicolored smoke filling the air. "_'Finely chop four daisy roots and add them one at a time to the cauldron. Vigorously stir sixteen times widdershins, then bring to a boil.'_ Out of curiosity, why don't you just say anticlockwise? That would make much more sense to me."

"I am the professor in this classroom, _Potter_, not you!" Snape spat, sallow face purpling. "Did you do what the directions _clearly_ say to do?!"

He hummed in thought, reviewing his preparations. "The roots could have been a hair smaller, I suppose, but otherwise yes, I did everything according to the instructions."

"If you had done as you were supposed to, your potion would be clear! _Evanesco_!" The cauldron stood suddenly empty. Snape smirked as the Slytherins laughed. "I guess that means zero marks for today, doesn't it, Potter?"

Contrary to Snape's expectations, Harry grinned back. He turned to his lovely brunette and asked, "Mione, did that potion look acceptable to you?"

She frowned in confusion. "Yes, it was fine. Certainly good enough for passing…" she gasped as she realized where his thoughts were headed, "…for passing your OWLs."

"That's enough for me." He gathered the rest of his materials and beamed at the Death Eater. "You seem to have forgotten, _Snape_, that the marks you give us don't matter this year. What NEWT classes we qualify for are based entirely on how we do on the exams, which I can almost guarantee won't be monitored by an immature git with a complex about my father. Now, I'm going to be the bigger man today and not curse you like you deserve or call in the _life debt_ you owe my family, but I won't be able to restrain myself forever. A piece of advice: change your attitude, or I'll be more than delighted to change it for you. Shall we, Mione?"

They left to the sounds of snickering, but for the first time in his memory, the Lions were the ones making that noise.

* * *

**The "Ankle Noose hex" is my name for **_**Levicorpus**_**, if that wasn't clear.**

* * *

**Faraway-R:** No, I was referring to nonjon's story _Black Comedy_.

**Joe Lawyer:** If you remember, practically everyone was still throwing out verbal incantations in book 7, even though silent casting had already been introduced. In addition, it seems like nonverbal spells were weaker than their verbal counterparts. Shouting the magic Latin gibberish is a fancy bit of self-delusion — volume, even saying the words at all, shouldn't really matter — but it makes spells stronger because wizards _believe_ it does. I'm undecided if Floppy's going to show up again, but I haven't ruled it out yet.

**Aealket:** There isn't really a reason; that's just the order I keep assigning them the tasks. Of course, since Harry is the strongest of the three, it makes sense for him to man the tap.

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** The Dark Mark is too small for full magesight to be helpful. The trio can certainly use it to identify Death Eaters, but they (the DEs, not our heroes), would just say that it was put on them in the previous war while they were under the Imperius. Lilith will contact them in a few chapters.

**jadesabrexiv:** Watson's movie never even crossed my mind when describing Roper; it was more me poking fun at how there are only about 40 people in Harry's year, yet most of them are just names, if that. I've never read _Sunrise over Britain_, but I'm pretty sure Bob or Alyx got the idea from Jeconais's story _This Means War_ (one of the few Harry/Ginny fics I've ever liked). So many ideas, won't you ever stop?! I'm kidding, don't worry, but those suggestions did make me chuckle.

**Cocoa Girl:** If you remember book 5, the DoM isn't the most secure place around, but ward schemes were in the notes Rookwood had. In terms of money, I haven't bothered coming up with an exact number; suffice it to say enough for three people to live on comfortably for the rest of their lives by now. The trio is stealing money firstly to get it out of Voldemort's hands and only secondly for their own needs.

**Silently Watches out.**


	24. A Bad Case of the Mondays

**Disclaimer:** Did anyone in authority ever do something about Snape's blatantly unprofessional behavior towards Harry? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 24  
****A Bad Case of the Mondays**

His foot tapping impatiently, Harry waited below the trapdoor leading to Trelawney's lair. He and Hermione had met up with Luna in the kitchens for a quick lunch, where he had regaled her with his confrontation with Snape. The blonde had very nearly torn something from laughter; thankfully, a silencing charm kept her giggles from disturbing the castle's house elves.

_And kept them from listening in on their own, as well_, he considered quietly. _No one thinks about them, but I bet the Hogwarts elves constitute a larger portion of Dumbledore's spy network than the portraits do. After all, everyone 'knows' that the paintings report to him and so need to be avoided, but how many times have people held private conversations in a deserted corridor, never realizing that there could have been an elf there with standing orders to report interesting information to the old man?_

There was another benefit to eating away from the Great Hall: he wanted to let Snape stew in his own juices for a while. Many times the greasy git had struck Harry as being… not entirely stable, and the longer Snape had to rein in his temper, the more dramatic and violent his reaction would eventually be. _Too bad I can't put the confrontation off until tomorrow; that would be even better for my plan. I need him so mad that he can't even see straight._ He smiled evilly. Who could have guessed that reading the Hogwarts bylaws out of sheer boredom in the previous timeline would be useful?

A few other students in his year had gathered as he whiled away the time, and when the bell rang, he led the lethargic charge up the silver ladder. Divination had been his second-least favorite class when he first attended school, due mostly to Trelawney's irritating habit of predicting his death at least once a week. A second reason was the large amount of incense she constantly burned inside the stuffy little classroom. _Of course, if I drank cooking sherry to sate my raging alcoholism, I'd want to cover the stench with something else, too._ He paused for a moment; that thought had almost reminded him of something, but he could not put his finger on exactly what. Shrugging it off, he wended his way through the spindly little tables populating the room to a seat far from the noxious fireplace.

Over the next few minutes, the rest of the class gradually trickled in. He was surprised when Ron chose to sit next to Hannah Abbott; apparently, his new attitude had had more of an effect on the timeline than he expected. The chair across from him was still empty when the trapdoor closed on its own.

"Good day," Trelawney greeted in her normal half-aware manner. "And welcome back to Divination. I have, of course, been —"

A knocking on the floor cut her off, and with a frown she walked over and lifted the trapdoor. For the first time in his memory, her voice sounded just like any other professor's. "Ah, Mr. Longbottom, I am glad you _finally_ made it here. Find an empty seat."

"Sorry, Professor," Neville said timidly as he entered. The boy glanced around and veritably scurried over to Harry. "Do you mind?"

He shook his head. Watching Neville set his bag down, he could not help but compare the mousy fifteen year old to the war-hardened man he had grown to be. _Okay, now I see Mione's point. Neville needs __**something**__ to raise his confidence, but without the DA, I have no idea what that could possibly be. Hmm, I'll think on it; after the way he fought by my side through two wars, there's no way I'm going to leave him to flounder about on his own._ He tuned back in to hear the last of the professor's speech.

"Turn, please, to the introduction and read what Imago has to say on the matter of dream interpretation. Then, divide into pairs and interpret each other's most recent dreams. Carry on."

The book on the table, _The Dream Oracle_, was just as boring as it had been in the old timeline, so Harry let his thoughts wander. Not surprisingly, perhaps, they turned to the shawled woman drifting aimlessly about. _I truly do not understand. Prophecies exist, and she is a real Seer, yet she doesn't even know it and acts more like a fairground fortune teller than anything else. It makes me wonder if there is any value in teaching a course like this; if Seers can't remember when they make a real prediction, can the Inner Eye even be trained? Is this class a total waste of time?_ He chuckled lightly, distracting Neville for a moment. _Well, is this class a total waste of time for students besides those of us who signed up solely to fill up our second elective, I suppose would be a more accurate phrasing._

When there were only ten minutes left in the period, Neville glanced up from the book. "Have you had any dreams lately?"

"Well, I _did_ have one last night starring a naked Hermione, but I'm pretty sure I know what that means already," he answered with a grin. The other boy's cheeks immediately turned cherry-red. "What about you?"

"There was one I had a few times over the summer, the most recent was… maybe last week? It's really weird."

"Sounds perfect for this assignment. Let's hear it, then."

Neville nodded. "Okay, when it starts, I'm working in our manor's greenhouse like I do a lot over the summers. I get up to wash the mooncalf manure off my hands, and this enormous pair of scissors crashes through one wall. For some reason, it's wearing one of my gran's hats, her favorite one with a stuffed vulture on top. I'm frozen in shock at this point, and it starts cutting up all the plants! First it's the flutterbloom, then the puffapod, then the bird-eating ivy, then —"

"I think I get the point," he cut in, causing the other Gryffindor's mouth to snap closed. More softly, he continued, "Do those plants have any special meaning to you?"

"Yeah, they do. When I was eight or so, I started following our house elf Mossy while he took care of my mum's plants. He taught me a lot about them, and after first year, I kind of took over a corner of the greenhouse for some of the simpler ones, then it just grew out from there. We split the plants between us now when I'm home."

Harry leaned back in his chair and pondered for a minute. "I have an idea what your dream could mean, but I'm not sure you want to hear it."

"May as well tell me," Neville sighed.

"Okay. I think the reason those scissors are wearing your grandmother's hat is that they represent her; you're worried — subconsciously, mind you — that one day she's going to barge in and tear down all you've accomplished. Maybe you're also afraid she will destroy one of the last links you have to your mother, one that's alive and vibrant and about as far removed from St. Mungo's as you can get."

Neville's head shot up as he stared at Harry, his eyes wide. "What… How?"

_Oops. I wasn't supposed to know about them yet. Okay, time for damage control_. He said gently, "I got curious one day about why you always talked about your gran but never mentioned your parents, so I dug through some old Daily Prophets. An attack on two well-known Aurors by the Lestranges was pretty big news, especially coming so soon after _that_ Halloween."

"And you never said anything to anyone?"

"No. For one, it wasn't my place; I figured you'd talk about it when you felt ready." Neville blushed again at that. "For two, I know how much not having parents sucks, and also how painful it is when someone brings it up. We may not be best mates, but I wasn't going to do that to you. And for three," he sighed, "I was a little jealous."

"Jealous? Why?"

"Because even though they're… how they are, you know where your mum and dad are, you get to visit them. Me, I've never been to my parents' graves; I didn't even know where they were until this summer." Depending on how someone looked at time, Harry realized that could even be considered true. "So yeah, I was jealous. Anyway, that's what I think your dream might mean."

Neville sat quietly for a moment. "You could be right. Gran's always comparing me to my dad, how I should be as good as he was, but she almost never talks about my mum, and when she does, she's criticizing me for acting just like her. Mum supposedly liked Herbology and Charms, too, and Gran was really unhappy that Herbology was my best class; she said it was a soft option. I don't know what could make Gran dislike Mum so much, though."

"I wouldn't read too much into it right off," he cautioned. "It may just be that they butted heads like mothers- and daughters-in-law all over the world do. Your gran may not even realize she's talking about your mum like she is. One thing you could do to find out is ask her to stop the next time she says something bad about your mum; she might be surprised that she was doing it at all."

"That's a really good idea. Thanks, Harry." Neville smiled. "Maybe you're not as bad at Divination as you say you are."

"Oh, this wasn't Divination, just a little psychology. Dream interpretation was one of its first uses." At the other boy's confused look, he explained, "It's the study of the mind. Muggles have put a lot of time and effort into figuring out why people act or think the way they do. I've flipped through a book or two on the subject."

_That_ was a bald-faced lie. When Harry learned he had a natural talent for mind magics, he had looked for everything he could find on psychology. Wizards and witches had utterly no clue about how the mind worked, and the one compiled text in Flourish and Blott's on spells that affected people's thoughts was short enough to read in a single lazy afternoon. If he was going to use mind-altering spells on his enemies, he didn't just want to know how to cast them; he wanted to understand exactly what those spells were doing so they would be as effective as possible. That no one he cast mind magic on had ever broken free should demonstrate how beneficial his studying was.

The bell rang shortly after that, and Harry hung back to stay out of the tidal wave flowing out. Starting his way down the long staircase, he frowned. _If every Divination class is going to be like they were in the old timeline, I may need to wind back an hour or two so I can steal away to the Hog's Head for a drink just to keep my sanity. It's not like Aberforth will care how old I look so long as I have the coin to pay him._ The thought from earlier struck him, and he stopped mid-step, backing up to avoid tumbling down the stairs.

_In sixth year when Trelawney told me that Snape overheard her during her interview with Dumbledore, she mentioned that their meeting took place in the __**Hog's Head**__! That makes no sense whatsoever; if there is one person who can give Voldemort a run for his money in terms of hating Albus Dumbledore, it's Aberforth. The likelihood that he would let Dumbledore prance into his bar for any reason — let alone a job interview, considering the codger has a perfectly good office not fifteen minutes away — is so low that not even the goblins would offer odds on it. Why did Trelawney say that her interview was there?_ He pondered for a moment, then a glare crept into his eyes. _Or perhaps a better question is, why did Trelawney __**think**__ her interview was there? It all comes back to you, doesn't it, you manipulative old bastard?_

_I need to talk this over with Hermione and Luna. Maybe between the three of us, we can figure out what the hell he was up to._

* * *

Harry slipped into Umbridge's class a matter of seconds before the bell rang. Though Hermione frowned at his timing and wroth expression, she did nothing but move her satchel from the seat next to her so he could sit. "We three need to talk tonight," he whispered.

"Okay." Hermione turned to the front as the toad stood from behind her desk, not that it made much difference in her height.

"Well, good afternoon!" Umbridge said in that faux-little-girl voice he despised so much.

A few people responded in kind, though most stared at the woman like she had gone round the bend. A fair concern, to be sure; she _had_, after all, croaked like a bullfrog in her opening address, and now she was set on treating them like children a decade younger than they really were. Harry could sympathize with that, really.

A hard glint appeared in Umbridge's eyes, not that the oblivious youth noticed. "Tut, tut. _That_ won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.' One more time. Good afternoon, class!"

He crossed his arms over his chest and barely withheld a glare; this monster was many things, but a _professor_ she was not. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Hermione do the exact same thing.

"There, now, that wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please." She pulled her laughably short wand from her handbag — pink, of course — and rapped it on the blackboard. While _'A Return to Basic Principles'_ was still forming on the dark surface, she turned back to face the students. "Your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it? The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Min— _approved_ curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your OWL year."

_Well, damn_, Harry thought unhappily. _I guess she's smarter than I gave her credit for if she's figured out that trap already. I'll just have to try harder._

"You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centered course of magic this year. Copy down the following, please." Another tap on the board displayed the course aims.

_The worst part about this is that those objectives aren't too bad a start. In fact, this course would be __**perfect**__ for first years; add a fourth point concerning an introduction to the practical side of DADA, and it would be fine for the second years, as well. The problem, of course, is that it's totally inadequate for upper years. Unfortunately, this probably closes off most avenues of getting rid of her through proper channels; her class will look good enough on paper, especially with the Ministry backing her, for that to work. And I was actually kind of hoping that we could use the system to shield ourselves from this torture-happy bitch._

_Oh well, we'll just have to go the messy route._

"Has everybody got a copy of Wilbert Slinkhard's book?" After again chiding the class to be more enthusiastic, she continued, "I should like you to turn to page five and read chapter one, 'Basics for Beginners.' There will be no need to talk."

He grinned slightly and pulled out a bland grey book with _Defensive Magical Theory_ written on the front. The entire thing looked to be designed to put the reader to sleep; even the font was boring. Opening it, though, revealed that to be a deception. _A Compendium of Curse-Breaking Techniques, vol. III_ was a drier title, certainly, but the contents were infinitely more interesting than Slinkhard's petulant whining.

Perhaps half an hour later, Umbridge cleared her throat. "Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?"

Harry's eyes shot to the toad, then he immediately turned to Hermione. She was not holding her hand up like last time, however, but was instead looking behind them. Continuing his rotation, he spotted one of the Patil sisters, Padma by the blue and bronze tie, lowering her hand. "No, ma'am, not the chapter itself. I'm somewhat confused about the coarse goals."

"Well, Miss Patil, perhaps you should read them again. They are written in perfectly clear English, after all."

Padma's eyes narrowed at the denigrating jab, and her voice was decidedly frosty as she said, "Perhaps you forgot one, then. They do not mention _using_ magic."

Umbridge laughed. "_Using_ magic? Why, I can't imagine any situation arising that would require you to do that. Do you expect to be attacked during class?"

"Isn't there a practical bit in our Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL, though?" Parvati piped up from beside her twin. "Where we're supposed to show that we can actually do the countercurses and things?"

"As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why any _proper_ witch should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions." Harry lazily raised one hand, gaining the toad's attention before either Hindu girl could explode from the casual dismissals and unstated racism. She eyed him gleefully. "Yes, Mr. Potter? Do _you_ have something to add?"

"I do, professor. I'm not sure where you picked up this estimation of our skills — perhaps your Hogwarts class was simply exceptional? — but speaking from four years of experience, I have not known any student in this room to be able to cast a spell on the first attempt. Surely you would not put us at such a disadvantage during this most crucial year of our education?"

Umbridge sputtered a few times, apparently prepared for him to spout off about Voldemort. It hadn't worked the first time, not that she knew this, so why would he repeat it and expect different results? That was the shorthand definition of insanity, after all. "Well, Mr. Potter, that can only be because none of you have ever been taught the theory sufficiently. Unsurprising considering how very irresponsible wizards you had in this class, not to mention," she shuddered, "extremely dangerous half-breeds."

"We have not been properly taught magical theory?" he asked, intentionally misunderstanding her. "My my, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick will be beside themselves at such an oversight. I'm sure both of them will be approaching you shortly to correct this grievous failing. Professor McGonagall, especially; it would look downright terrible for the Deputy Headmistress to be found lacking, don't you think?"

Umbridge paled at that. She clearly had not thought about who all she could be construed as insulting when she voiced that blanket denigration. As his veiled disrespect filtered through her brain, however, her face purpled. She opened her mouth, and his deep-set compulsion reacted.

_Ribbit!_

The class broke out in laughter as their illustrious professor once again acted like the amphibian she resembled, waving her wand at herself and vocalizing — there was no way such din could be called singing — in harmony with a tune only she could hear. After a few seconds, Harry stood and gathered his belongings. "Did anyone else hear her dismiss us early? I heard her say we could go." Quickly catching on, the other students packed up and followed him and his lover out the door.

Umbridge glowered at the empty desks and croaked furiously.

* * *

It was at dinner that McGonagall struck. Sitting in between Hermione and Luna, Harry looked up at the insistent tapping on his shoulder at his displeased head of house. "Can I help you, Professor?"

"Indeed you can, Mr. Potter. The Headmaster has requested you come to his office to discuss your behavior towards Professor Snape earlier today."

"I figured that was the case. Luna, would you be a dear and —"

"Get everything ready? Of course." The blonde smiled before kissing him passionately; when she pulled back, she giggled at his own dreamy face and McGonagall's scandalized look. Leaning back in to do the same to Hermione, she said, "Don't take too long, though. You know the elderly shouldn't stay up past their bedtimes."

He smiled as she skipped out the door. Shaking his head to jar his thoughts back into a rough semblance of order, he stood and held out his hand to assist Hermione up. "Let's go see what the great and powerful Oz wants. Actually, Professor, you had better come with us as well."

Nonplussed at his reference on the heels of Luna's actions, she frowned before saying, "Professor Dumbledore wants to see you alone, Mr. Potter."

"Let me rephrase, then. _Deputy Headmistress_, your presence is required in an official capacity."

He walked into the hall with his beloved brunette. A moment later, clacking on stone announced that the older Scotswoman was following. "Mr. Potter, while I don't understand why you want me there, I do know that Miss Granger is not needed."

"Actually, she is. She's my second." He did not _expect_ a formal duel to occur, but with how Dumbledore always backed Snape up, there was no telling what would happen when he sprang his trap.

The rest of their walked continued in silence from the two time-travelers; after a minute, McGonagall realized they would say no more until they reached their destination. Arriving at an ugly gargoyle statue, she firmly intoned, "Ice mice," before they continued into the lion's den.

Dumbledore smiled genially, though his expression dimmed when he spotted Harry's companions. "Minerva, did I not say that I wished to speak to Mr. Potter alone?"

"Kind of hard to speak to me alone when Snape's skulking around," Harry said, jerking his thumb to where the self-centered spy was striving to sink into the shadows. "Besides, both of them need to be here."

"Now, Harry, my boy —"

"They stay, Headmaster."

The old man snapped his mouth shut at his forceful tone; Snape simple snarled. "Very well, Harry, if you insist. Would you mind telling me why you were so antagonistic and disrespectful to Professor Snape this morning?"

"You mean _besides_ him deducting points without cause, singling me out for ridicule, and vanishing a potion to give me a zero for the day even though the potion in question easily deserved an Exceeds Expectations, perhaps even an Outstanding? I suppose I must have picked up a Wrackspurt infestation in Headquarters that has caused me to start standing up to bullies."

"The imaginary creatures thing is Luna's gig," Hermione chided playfully. "Don't steal it from her. Besides, if anyone gave you Wrackspurts, she would be my first suspect."

"No, what I got from her itches a lot more."

She rolled her eyes. "They have creams for that now, love." Harry barely managed to shove down his chortles at the adult's gaping mouths.

Finally, Dumbledore managed to pick his jaw up off the floor. "I… I see. Please visit Madam Pomfrey to have that looked at. Still, you cannot go about insulting your professors with impunity. I'm afraid you will have to serve detention with Professor Snape—"

"No."

"— only for a week or so, just so that you won't…" The old man blinked a few times. "I'm sorry, my boy, what did you say?"

"I said no. I'm not going to serve any detentions with Snape," Harry repeated.

Snape sneered. "Just like a Potter, thinking you can dictate when you can and cannot be punished. Your father —"

"Be _silent_, Death Eater." Again, those without knowledge of the future were shocked into stillness. He sighed. _We're not going to get anywhere if they keep interrupting me._ "As for _why_, I hereby call into effect section nineteen, subsection three of the Hogwarts Faculty Code of Conduct."

"You mean subsection two," Hermione interjected. "Subsection three concerns the groundskeeper being caught engaging in sodomy during a school day with an animal from the previous week's Care lessons."

Everyone turning towards her caused her to blush. Harry opened his mouth a few times fruitlessly before managing, "That's… oddly specific, and I really don't want to know why. Subsection _two_, then."

With a frown, McGonagall summoned a thin book off Dumbledore's shelves and turned to the back. When her eyes shot open, he knew she had found the relevant text. "I dinnae ken… Mr. Potter, are ye honestly implying that ye and Professor Snape are involved in a _blood feud_?"

"I am not _implying_ anything," he responded hotly, slowly moving from between Hermione and the target of his plot. "I am flat-out _saying_ that Snape is punishing me for my father's actions even after his death, thereby turning what was a personal issue between them into a family conflict, and that I have felt like my life was in danger when in his presence. This is before complicating the situation with the fact that he bears the brand given to followers of my parents' murderer, not to mention that he tried to have my godfather suffer the Dementor's Kiss just over a year ago with full knowledge that Sirius was framed and wrongfully imprisoned. Yes, I believe there is a blood feud between the Houses of Snape and Potter. In light of this, I demand the standard safety protocols for such a situation be instated as delineated in the Code, including but not limited to moderation of punishments, at least one unbiased mediator when the two of us are required to be in the same area, withdrawal of myself and my allies from all classes and clubs he is assigned to teach or sponsor—"

Snape, furious at either the slight to his professionalism — which Harry doubted — or his favorite chew toy being taken away — _this_ one he thought was more likely — snapped out his wand and screamed, "_Diffind_—aagh!"

Idly curious about why the dungeon bat was clutching his chest in pain, Harry leapt backwards. The streamer of magic passed through where his shoulders and neck had been before nicking the frame of Phineas Nigellus's portrait. The garbled incantation and loss of focus had weakened the spell to a level that he would have survived, probably with only minor injuries, but that did not change the intent behind it. His wand, which had rested out of view in his left hand since he saw Snape was there, moved to point at the 'professor'. "_Depulso_," he whispered, his natural rage at someone trying to kill him supplementing his will. Snape flew backwards to be stopped by the wall; a sharp crack was heard before the man slid back to the floor, a trail of bloody grease marking where his head had impacted stone. "I'd like to add assault and attempted murder to my list of grievances against him; this should also validate my claim that Snape actively poses a threat to my life. Professor McGonagall, if you would please call in the DMLE?"

"Harry, my boy, there is no need for such an extreme act." When the other three conscious individuals looked at him in unified disbelief, Dumbledore amended, "While Professor Snape was certainly in the wrong, I am sure this is simply a case of him letting his passions overwhelm him. Considering no one was hurt, there is no reason this cannot be handled internally. I will have a talk with him, and then we can all move on from this bit of unpleasantness."

He glared at the end of Dumbledore's oft-broken nose, both avoiding Legilimency and calculating the chances for getting away with giving the Headmaster another one. They were probably not in his favor. This was just like the old man; protecting his pet at the expense of the law and everyone else's safety. Dumbledore still had too good of a reputation and too much political capitol, even without his various positions, for any accusations to stick, at least at this time. Aware of Dumbledore's predilections, it was only Harry's knowledge of Snape's obsession with his mother that prevented him from wondering if the bat pulled double-duty as spy and bed-warmer. "And the recognition of our blood feud?"

"Certainly you do not wish to sully Severus's reputation? I would trust him with my life, Harry."

"Bully for you. I do not, and more importantly _will not_, continue to put my life and wellbeing in his hands. You can either enact the required precautions, or I will inform Dowager Longbottom and the rest of the school governors about what transpired here. Tonight."

Dumbledore sighed in that infuriating grandfatherly manner of his. "If you insist on going down this route, I suppose I have no choice but to excuse you from Professor Snape's class. I am very disappointed in you, though, and I'm sure your parents would be as well. The inability to forgive is the first step in turning Dark."

"If you remember, we discussed this very subject earlier in the summer, Professor." Harry leaned closer. "Tell me, who must I torture and kill to earn your trust? Who must I betray? What child's life must I _destroy_ before you deem me worthy of respect?"

Though he could not see her, he could feel McGonagall heavy glare from behind him. Dumbldore, however, seemed to be the recipient if his blanching was any indication. "Yes, well… Minerva, could you inform the rest of the staff that I need to speak with them? Harry, Hermione, you may go."

The two teens departed, leaving the fuming head of Gryffindor to her prey.

* * *

**Neville's dream is canon, though we never learn anything about it other than it includes scissors wearing his grandmother's hat. Also, I am not **_**bashing**_** Augusta Longbottom so much as… pointing something out. She — supposedly — spent a lot of time trying to turn Neville into a mini-Frank, even making him use his father's wand, but the one time we see the Longbottom parents, Augusta is dismissive about the bubblegum wrappers Alice gives only to Neville, a sign that the woman does, on some level, know who he is. When I read that part of book 5, I couldn't help but wonder if she would have acted differently were Alice's and Frank's positions reversed.**

**I get the feeling that the "Must I go Dark to truly appreciate the Light?" speech is going to be a common recurrence if Snape keeps sticking his big nose where it isn't wanted.**

* * *

**Wrathkal:** The trio aren't going to bother convincing the kids that house points are worthless. They won't fold under rumors or demands, and anyone who tries to physically intimidate them will be in for a world of hurt.

**Zaralann:** Because Voldie _can't_ take what he wants; not right now, at least. If he wants to stay on the down-low, he has to move politically through Lucius, which means bribes. He also needs the gold to buy ingredients for the healing potions the Death Eaters will eventually need, components for future rituals, all sorts of things. Soldiers may march on their stomachs, but gold is what wins wars.

**jadesabrexiv:** As you can see, the taunting was just the first step in defanging Snape (and I'm still not done with him). The same goes for Umbridge; the trio will use as delicate a touch as they can when in public to limit the risks to themselves. I have a few ideas to cause all sorts of chaos with the destruction of the _Prophet_.

**sarah-rose76646:** Snape didn't stop Harry and Hermione from leaving because he was too shocked at how out-of-character Harry was acting. He _did_ take more points, but it was after the chapter ended.

**Silently Watches out.**


	25. Mistaken Memory

**Disclaimer:** Was the Quidditch season canceled during the Triwizard Tournament, even though there wasn't a single good reason for it? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 25  
****Mistaken Memory**

Harry had already entered the Room of Requirement when he took notice of its appearance. He backed out slowly, shutting the door with care.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, her face a study in consternation.

He raised a finger to ward off her questions. Closing his eyes, he paced in front of the door three times; he was unhappy but not at all shocked when he looked again to discover that it had not changed from the wide wooden circle they had first spotted. He squared his shoulders and walked in once more. "Luna, love, you are _never_ getting to configure the Room again."

"Aww," the blonde groaned from her bubble bath in the middle of the forest clearing. "Why not?"

He slapped away a fist-sized winged acorn that flew in front of his face and pointed at the pink and gold mushroom that had been hollowed out to form the tub. "Because I feel like I'm in bloody Wonderland."

"And that's a bad thing… why?"

"This is what I like to call the _'rejection stage'_," Hermione piped in as she began stripping off her uniform. "I'm surprised you're only just now experiencing it, but this _is_ the first time she's ever had control of a room that can make whatever she imagines real. That is more than just about anyone can handle on short notice."

"So why are you so relaxed?" he retorted.

She shrugged placidly. "You have a greater tolerance for the Lovegood brand of insanity than I do. I went past rejection and straight into denial. As far as I'm concerned, either the hallucinations will end on their own like they normally do, or I'll finally find myself safe in a straightjacket and surrounded by padded walls." Now nude, she walked past him and climbed into mushroom.

He sighed before shucking off his clothes and joining the girls as well. The water was just short of scalding, guaranteeing that they would look like steamed lobsters when they climbed out. In short, the perfect temperature for a magical hot tub. Though not generally a fan of bubbles, Harry was quite glad they were there; he had no desire to see what water sitting inside an overgrown fungus looked like.

His second sigh was much more content.

Luna giggled on his right and reached over the brunette at her other side to grab a wooden goblet from the lurid orange caterpillar… hand… thing holding it. "Thank you, Constance." The major domo inclined its six-and-one-third heads before melting away in a river of loud sourness. "So, did Snape have a stroke when you declared blood feud?"

"No, unfortunately," Hermione responded, relaxing into her girlfriend's shoulder. "Though he did get so mad that he tried to cut off Harry's head."

"The big one or the important one?"

He snorted. "You _would_ say that. Luna, maybe you can clear something up for us. When Snape was casting, he screamed and grabbed his chest —" The girl's sharp nod cut him off.

"Like he was about to have a heart attack? I sometimes forget that there are still things about the Wizarding world you two don't know. What you saw was his magic reacting to him working against his life debt. Since he owed your father, and now owes you, his life, he can't actively try to kill you. I'm guessing whatever spell he used missed you?" At his affirmation, she continued, "Had it connected, even if you only got a scratch from it, his heart would have literally exploded in his chest. As it is, he got a stern warning not to do that again."

"So I can off him in a spectacularly messy fashion, but to do so I have to let him hit me with the intent to kill? _Fantastic_."

"Nope," the blonde replied with a shake of her head. "When you go against a life debt like that, you only get two warnings. The third time you try it, your spell doesn't work and you're dead before you hit the floor. Of course, Snape's many things, but an idiot is not one of them; we shouldn't expect him to come after you like that again."

"Well, so much for the easy route." He averted his eyes and waved off the ten-foot-long multicolored tuna offer him a platter full of pasties. _Since when do fish grow a dozen arms?_ "And as appreciative as I am for the information, that's not why we need to talk."

Hermione looked over at him. "You decided to not to do the ritual on Luna's birthday after all and want to take our virginities again now?"

"Neville's emulating you and gathering a harem of disenchanted Boy-Who-Lived fangirls?"

"Dumbledore was right and you _can_ kill Voldemort with a hug?"

"The tricentennial migration of the Alluvial Sleschenritters made you develop an undeniable lust for Malfoy?"

"You're giving up Quidditch to study with us more?"

Luna turned to Hermione in disbelief. "And you call _me_ crazy?"

Rolling his eyes, Harry walked them through the thoughts about Trelawney and the Dumbledores that had struck him after Divination earlier that day, including his desire for them to watch his discussion with the professor first-hand with more experienced and jaded eyes. When he finished, both of them pondered for a few minutes. "Well, that explains why you wanted a Pensieve," Luna finally said.

"Which I don't see anywhere."

She smiled innocently. "We're sitting in it."

He shoved the layer of bubbles away to find that, no, the fluid filling the mushroom was not water. His mouth hanging open, he turned to Luna. "What are you waiting for," she asked before he could get a word out, "an engraved invitation? Drop the memory in so we can get the boring stuff over with and get back to lounging."

It turned out that being dragged into a memory while already inside a Pensieve was much different from falling into it from outside. For starters, Harry landed on his face.

"Well, _that_ was pleasant," he grumbled into the masonry. Lifting himself onto his elbows, he spotted the Divination professor also laying on the floor, though she had bottles of cheap spirits encircling her. He glanced about. "Where are the girls?"

"Wheeeee!" A cheering mass of wet flesh dropped onto his shoulders, smashing his face down again. "Oh, there you are. You okay?"

"I'm fine," he tried to mutter, though what came out was an unintelligible grumble. Once she slid over to his lower back and he was no longer kissing stone, he hesitantly prodded his nose. "Okay, apparently we can't get injured in Pensieves. That makes me feel better. Did you see Hermione on your way down?"

"No. You sank first, and I came right after, which means…"

"Aaaahhh!" The weight on him doubled, and his face had its third introduction to the ground. It took them a minute, but the trio sorted themselves out in the end, and just in time to hear Trelawney's remembered remembrance to his younger self.

"I well remember my first interview with Dumbledore," the lush began. "He was deeply impressed, of course, deeply impressed… I was staying at the Hog's Head, which I do not advise, incidentally — bedbugs, dear boy — but funds were low. Dumbledore did me the courtesy of calling upon me in my room."

"You're right, Harry, that _is_ odd," Hermione murmured. "It's not like she would have to pay an entrance fee to see any of the faculty. If she had an appointment, she could have just walked right in."

Oblivious to the visitors out of time, Trelawney continued, "He questioned me… I must confess that, at first, I thought he seemed ill-disposed toward Divination… and I remember I was starting to feel a little odd, I had not eaten much that day… but then… but then we were interrupted by Severus Snape!"

"What?" the memory Harry asked in shock. The current model shook his head out how naive he had once been.

"Yes, there was a commotion outside the door and it flew open and there was that rather uncouth barman standing with Snape, who was waffling on about having come the wrong way up the stairs, although I'm afraid that I myself rather thought —"

"Stop, stop, stop! None of this makes any sense whatsoever." Luna paced back and forth for a few moments, then turned to Harry. "I know he's anything but trustworthy, but Dumbledore _did_ say that Snape only overheard the first half of the prophecy, right?"

"That's what he said, and considering what the other half was, Voldemort's actions make it likely he was telling the truth that time," he confirmed.

"That's just not possible. Seers can't notice anything about the outside world while they give their predictions, yet Trelawney described in detail what happened? For her to do that, Snape would have had to hear it in its entirety before he was noticed."

Hermione chewed on her lower lip as she thought. "Could he have been privy to the whole thing but only told Voldemort the first part?"

"Why, though?" he returned. "He regretted sharing the prophecy only when he found out that my mother was in danger; that's why he went crawling to Dumbledore in the first place. The bastard's memories were clear on that point. He had no reason to hold anything back. Knowing the whole thing, Voldemort wouldn't have attacked us at all for fear of creating an equal with an unknown power. Mum was in _more_ danger with him only knowing the beginning. If Snape knew that revealing the rest would keep the object of his obsession safe, why wouldn't he do it?"

The brunette sighed. "So not only did Aberforth temporarily forgive his brother enough to let him into the bar, Trelawney broke a fundamental law of magic? Yeah, someone messed with her memories."

"The old man," he said with conviction.

"That's who my money would be on, too."

"So what _really_ went on that night?" Luna asked quietly. Neither of the others had an answer for her.

* * *

The following evening, said old man was attempting fruitlessly to force down his headache as his Potion Master continued ranting.

"…And that damn Lovegood twit he's been spending time with didn't come to class today, either! Why won't you let me give those bloody slags a bloody detention?!"

"I've already _told_ you that, my boy," Albus sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that night. "Harry sent a note this morning naming Hermione and Lovegood as his allies as per the Code of Conduct. They have not yet given a public declaration of allegiance —"

"There you go, then! If it isn't public, then they aren't protected by Potter's little ploy —"

"— _but they will if I decide such a statement is necessary_. If I make that decision, I am obligated to inform him, and I am certain that Hermione, at least, will be willing to go along with it."

Severus scoffed. "Because you _never_ ignore rules you are supposed to follow —"

"_Your stupidity got us into this situation!"_ He took a deep breath and settled back into his chair from the standing position he had leapt to. Snatching a lemon drop from the bowl on his desk, he popped it in his mouth and instantly felt the calming draught they were laced with take effect. His voice somewhat softer, but still far from the grandfatherly tone he normally used, he continued, "I do apologize for my outburst, Severus, but my hands are tied. I took a risk just keeping the DMLE out of the castle; my star may not have waned so far in the Ministry that I have lost all my influence, but neither has his, even if he doesn't know he has it. A man named as a Death Eater attacking the Boy-Who-Lived? Add onto that that Amelia still suspects you had a hand in her brother's and sister-in-law's deaths, and a single whisper of your _attempted murder_ would be enough to have you interrogated at the very least. If excusing Harry and a couple of his friends from your class is the price of his silence, we will pay it and be happy it is so cheap.

"I know telling you to do this is the same as asking a unicorn to be petted by a Knockturn Alley whore, but move on and _let it go_. Harry was undoubtedly planning this over the summer, and you played right into his hands. Take extra points from the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws if it will make you feel better, but I dare not assist you more than I already have."

"And if you indulging the brat causes him to fail his Potions OWL?"

_Why must he whine so?_, he wondered, adding a mental groan for good measure. "Then he fails. You and I both know you torment more than you teach; I doubt he would have passed had he stayed in your class, anyway. In the end, his scores don't matter; it isn't as if he will live long enough to need them. Harry's luck has to run out some day, and then Tom can finally be defeated.

"Besides, it is only the first week. Come Christmas, he will certainly be crawling back and begging for your forgiveness as the exams approach."

"But…"

"_No_, Severus. Now, if you will excuse me, I have parchmentwork to finish. The school doesn't run itself." The dour younger man stomped out the door, and Albus slumped over his desk. "There are days I don't know if giving him a chance to come back to the Light is worth the headaches he seemingly lives to bring me. What do you think, Fawkes?"

The bird looked over from his golden perch. Cocking his head, he chirped gaily, the sound raising Albus's spirits. "Yes, you are right, as usual. Everyone who walks down the path of Darkness deserves the opportunity to rise above their failings." Reclaiming his quill, he returned to his official duties, the previous day's hiccup dismissed and forgotten.

* * *

The Eternal named Ix, known to his current companion as Fawkes, settled back down on his throne. Motivating the human was a tiring and thankless job, but he had grown strangely fond of the young creature considering the short century he had spent in its presence. He would be hard-pressed to find another entity with such forgiveness and good intentions as the white-downed one possessed, and the steadfastness with which it withstood the unintended consequences of its actions warmed the blazing cockles of Ix's heart. He just hoped it would live to see its plans bear fruit, even if those fruits were never as sweet as one imagined they would be. Humans were such frail things.

Now, if only he could figure out what had those nasty faeries in such high spirits…

* * *

The sky had become steadily more overcast as the week progressed, and Harry shivered slightly in the cool air. He had only been to one Quidditch tryout in his six years at Hogwarts, and he was so preoccupied with running it at the time that he hadn't realized how _boring_ it was. Of course, part of his restlessness was that he was the only player on the Gryffindor team other than Angelina herself who was not defending his position. A delusional glory-hound they may think him, but no one could deny that he was a damn fine Seeker.

"Alright, that's good!" Angelina called to the prospective Chasers. "You can get back to the stands. Beaters, you're up!"

He sidled over to the captain. "Alicia and Katie were the best here, hands down."

"Oh, no question about that. Still, as sure as I was that they would keep their spots, it's never good to choose the people you know when there might be others who are even better. We especially need to identify new talent considering Fred, George, Alicia, and I are all leaving this year."

Her words of wisdom bequeathed, she shouted to the kids in the air, "Okay, everyone separate into sets of four. We're going to play a little game of catch." She descended to the ground and put one hand on a trunk. "When I release these Bludgers, I want each 'team' to trap as many as you can. If one gets away from you, tough luck; another group will probably grab it. We'll move on to the next test once all of them have been contained and counted. Ready? Go!" With that, she lifted the lid, and at least twenty of the large iron orbs flew out of the box.

A flash of red catching his attention, he turned his gaze to the ground. Sure enough, Ron was running onto the field. The ginger shouted to him, "Harry! I didn't miss it, did I?"

There was a series of cracks behind him, and Harry spun around to see a good dozen cannonballs flying at him from where they had escaped the prospective beaters' attempts to corral them. He jerked the shaft of his Firebolt to swerve out of the way, but the Bludgers weren't gunning for him. Instead, they all slammed into the hapless Weasley, throwing him into the framework of the stands.

"Ouch," he murmured with a wince. He might not mind Ron getting his just desserts for selling out on him, but even he felt a bit of sympathy for the boy. Getting smacked around by speeding Bludgers was no one's idea of a fun time. He flew over to where the redhead lay unmoving. "You all right there?"

"…Yeah, I'm good." Ron sat up, and Harry spotted the dents and cracks on the Keeper armor the boy was wearing. The Dire Misfortune Curse arranged circumstances so the victim suffered maximum pain and humiliation, but it was designed to avoid causing fatal injuries. Without that caveat, Ron would be being rushed to the Hospital Wing and ultimately St. Mungo's for the broken ribcage, back, neck, and skull he would have otherwise obtained.

"Well, to answer your question, you didn't miss the Keeper tryouts. That's next, once Angelina has chosen this year's Beaters."

"Good, I was worried I had."

He nodded and asked casually, "Why were you late to begin with?"

"Oh, I couldn't find my gear until I was already late, and when I was hurrying down the staircases, someone sent a tripping jinx at my back."

Frowning slightly, Harry considered that. It was certainly _possible_ that someone had tried to injure Ron; now that he and Hermione were spending time away from the ginger, they had found that the youngest Weasley boy was held in rather low regards by most of their housemates. _Could Luna have been responsible?_, he wondered, but immediately he cast the idea away. While the blonde had mentioned many times how much she would love to toss Ron down the stairs, preferably while they were in motion and not connected to a landing, she wasn't responsible this time. She and Hermione had mentioned they were going to have a little _'girl's night'_ since he had to be on the pitch. Thoughts of exactly what happened when his lovers were having their 'nights in' flashed through his mind, and he discreetly adjusted his position on his broom.

_No, I'm over-analyzing this. It was likely just the Curse again._ "At least you're here. Take a seat in the stands until it's time for you to come on the field."

"Sure thing, Harry. Up." In a scene straight from first year, the broom's bristles acted as a pivot, swinging the wooden shaft into Ron's face. The ginger jerked back, crimson pouring from his nose. "Ow, bloody hell!"

"Emphasis on _'bloody'_. You need to see Madam Pomfrey?" Ron shook his head, so Harry continued, "If you're sure. Maybe you should use the stairs?"

"Maybe I should use the stairs."

The rest of the Beater trials was uneventful, and just like everyone expected, Fred and George were able to keep their uniforms for one more year. "Okay, Keepers in the air!" Angelina shouted. Upon seeing how many people were competing for the spot — understandable since it was the only one where there was no seasoned veteran defending his place — she instructed, "Half of you go to one set of hoops, the rest of you go to the other! Team, huddle up!"

The five Lions flew over to join their captain. "Alicia, Katie, each of you grab two wannabe Chasers and fly against the Keepers. Test one at a time, five runs a piece. Fred and George, I want you keeping track of who blocks better than half the shots. Harry, you take half the trials and watch for form. I'd rather have an okay Keeper than a sloppy flier who managed to get lucky tonight. Let's get started."

Night was falling as Angelina blew her whistle yet again. Her voice hoarse, she called out, "All right, last ones to your places!" Harry smiled slightly when he spotted Ron fly into position at the goal posts he was watching. _Looks like I get a front row seat. This should be interesting_.

'Interesting' was one way to describe it. On the first throw, Katie, possibly forewarned by the twins that Ron had some experience Keeping, put a bit of spin on the Quaffle. That move was a specialty of hers, meant to hook the ball into the hoop. Ron didn't notice; he smirked at what he must have thought was an easy catch and jerked his broom to intercept, bringing his still-fragile nose directly into the scarlet ball's curved path.

His other chances at proving his Quidditch skills proved no more successful. He moved in the wrong direction entirely on the second and third attempts, flew backwards into the pole of the center goal on the fourth, and finally managed to get a hand on the Quaffle on the fifth. Unfortunately, doing so redirected fourth-year Demelza Robin's shot into the hoop, turning what would have been a miss into a scoring throw.

"Dis is bullshid!" he screamed, wincing when the motion further stressed his flattened snout. "I should hab had dose!"

Fred shrugged his shoulders. "Guess you were off your game tonight, little brother; it happens to all of us. Hopefully you'll have better luck next year."

"Nex' year?! Dell Angelina do gib me anodder chance; I know I'll catch all —"

At that moment, Ron's brand-new broom, possibly damaged by the multiple Bludger impacts and the collision with the boy's hard head it had suffered earlier in the evening, chose to enter extremely early retirement. It weaved drunkenly for a few seconds before plummeting to the ground. Thankfully for the younger Weasley, it still provided a little lift, slowing him down so he didn't crash into the field with _quite_ the force he otherwise would have.

His scream of fear, then pain, was temporarily overshadowed by two near-simultaneous snaps.

"Oh, boy," Fred said once they had landed next to the agonized Weasley. "Yeah, it looks like both your legs are busted up. Harry, did you learn any first aid during your stays in the Hospital Wing?"

"No, I didn't," he replied, keeping to himself that Hermione had taught him some during the Hunt and after they left Hogwarts. "What about you? Surely with your mum being how she is…"

"Nope. _Stupefy. Mobilicorpus_." Fred began trudging towards the castle, his unconscious brother floating a few feet behind him and looking like a marionette hanging from invisible strings.

Watching the two redheads leave, Harry couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for his former friend. _I think that might be enough for now. The Curse should fade away by Tuesday, and I'm not going to renew it. Though he sold me out to Dumbledore and is a jealous idiot in general, the Ron in __**this**__ timeline has yet to do anything truly unforgivable. The girls might be a little disappointed, but we've given him quite a lot to think over. Between all his unfortunate accidents, wetting himself, being booted off my coattails, and now losing his opportunity for Quidditch glory, his social standing is about as destroyed as it will get without us actively focusing our efforts against him. Either he'll grow from these experiences and become a better person — which __**is**__ a possibility, no matter how small of one — or he'll step out of line again and I'll put the Curse back on him and keep it there._

_You've been given your one and __**only**__ second chance, Ron. If you know what's good for you, don't squander it._

"It would suck to be him right about now," Katie remarked, unaware of the role he had played in the boy's injuries. "Do you know if he was really as good as he was saying?"

Harry shrugged. "He was okay in pickup games in the Weasley's backyard, but was he talented enough for competitive play? Not really."

The other members of the team drifted over, and Angelina said, "_Please_ tell me you found someone we can use. All the people on that side were absolutely hopeless."

"Of the people who could decently protect the hoops, the two I would recommend based on sheer flying ability are Cormac McLaggen —"

Angelina cut him off there. "Not a chance."

"— and a third year, Jimmy Peakes." He knew Peakes from the previous timeline; the younger boy had been a Beater the one year Harry was the captain. While not terrific in that position, he had been tolerable. What shocked Harry was how good Peakes was as Keeper, making him wonder why the boy hadn't tried out for that role in 1996. _Oh, right. He probably thought it was a bad idea to go up against the captain's best friend. That, or it's just another difference in the timelines. Merlin, keeping all this straight is going to be a pain and a half._

"Third year, huh? And he's good enough?"

Katie threw in her two knuts. "I could tell he was nervous, and while a couple of them were close, he _did_ save four out of five goals. He's no Ollie, but who is? I agree with Harry; Peakes has my vote."

"If you two vouch for him, that's good enough for me. I'll give the kid the good news. The rest of you, hit the showers and get out of here. First practice is bright and early Monday morning."

* * *

**The whole idea that Trelawney has no clue what's happening around her when she delivers a prophecy? Totally canon. Reread **_**Prisoner of Azkaban**_**, chapter sixteen if you don't believe me.**

**Please don't ask if Fawkes is going to play an antagonistic role in this story; that is all the muse's doing. I just work here.**

**Has anyone else noticed that Ron seems to fluctuate between too-low and too-high self-esteem? His confidence issues (especially in regards to Quidditch) are indicative of the the former, but his sense of entitlement and aggressiveness when his ego is threatened point more to the latter, at least in my personal experience with that type of people.**

**Kudos to anyone who caught the reference in this chapter (hint: the author passed Between about a year and a half ago).**

* * *

**Zaralann:** You're welcome :) No, "I'd trust him with my life" is just a turn of phrase, but it is an ironic one, isn't it?

**TopazDragon:** Yes, McGonagall's starting to see things aren't all bright and happy, but she's a long way from going against Dumbledore. There are _years_ of grandfatherly influence (read: brainwashing) that would have to be countered first.

**Spartan Ninja:** Officially, Harry will be doing "self-study". In reality, he doesn't care about his Potions OWL; the only careers he is interested in are professional thief and eventually stay-at-home dad.

**Aealket:** Harry doesn't actually have VD; he was just playing off Hermione's comment to screw with the "adult"s' heads. It's a good thing she knew he wasn't serious, or that could have ended badly! ;)

**Silently Watches out.**


	26. Elementary, My Dear Watson

**This should be the last of the Prophecy chapters. I hope so, anyway.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Dumbledore do _anything_ to prevent Snape from relaying the Prophecy to Voldemort when he discovered the Death Eater had overheard Trelawney? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 26  
****Elementary, My Dear Watson**

It was the tapping that drew Harry's attention from his book. He glanced up to where Hermione sat at the opposite side of the table in the abandoned classroom they had commandeered. Just as he hoped, she was fidgeting, the index finger on her left hand tapping arrhythmically as she twirled a quill in her right. Her irritated stare was fixed on the roll of parchment she had been writing on; Flitwick had not been kind to them for their first week back and had asked them to detail the theoretical differences among the summoning, banishing, and levitation charms and the effect those had on the spells' applications.

He distinctly remembered failing that essay, as had the entire class; Hermione in particular had taken it poorly, being nigh-inconsolable for the rest of the week. Privately, he suspected the minute professor had done it entirely to 'encourage' them to put more time into studying due to the upcoming OWLs. Tricky quarter-goblin.

Turning his gaze to his right, he smirked at his blonde lover, only for her to glare back. "Is something the matter, Mione?" he asked helpfully.

"No."

Luna grinned this time. He narrowed his eyes and continued, "Are you sure? You don't normally make that much noise unless you're annoyed about something."

"It's this blasted paper." She shoved the parchment away from her and leaned back in her chair, one hand rubbing her forehead. "We've only been back in school a week, but I'm already tired of this nonsense."

Harry bit his tongue before his next sentence could leap out; it would not do to violate the rules when victory was so close. "What nonsense are you talking about, love?"

"This complete and utter load of tripe!" Staring at him with an almost wild gleam in her eyes, she indicated the unfinished essay as well as the star chart for Astronomy and Sprout's assignment on determining the properties of magical trees from their leaf shapes. "We've _done_ all this before! It was mildly interesting then, but I already know it! It's dull, pointless, _boring_! If the entire year is to be like this, I'm going to go completely round the bend before Christmas!"

The younger girl's groan was loud as she banged her head against the table. "Damn it, Hermione, couldn't you have made it two more days?! All you had to do was last a full week! Is that really too much to ask?"

"Now, Luna, you know how upset she gets when faced with tedium. Unlike that day we played chess to determine if I had to go with you to look for new shoes, there was never any question I would win this time. I will admit, however, that I didn't think it would be this close," he returned gently, smiling all the while.

Hermione looked between them for a moment before she gaped in understanding. "You two… you two made a bet about me being frustrated by our homework?"

"Maybe a little one," he crowed. "We both knew you were going to crack sooner rather than later; the only question was how soon. She figured that you could make it into the second week, possibly even the third. I, on the other hand, knew that it wouldn't take nearly that long with all the work the professors kept… keep?… piling on us. Thank you very much, my dear."

"You… you…"

"Yep."

Her left eye twitching in annoyance at yet again, even if indirectly, being the butt of one of their jokes, she demanded, "And just what were the stakes of this wager?"

"A favor to be determined at a later date," Luna grumbled.

"Look on the bright side, Mione. You'll probably enjoy whatever I think of for her as much as I will."

The brunette's expression declared that she was in a decidedly _'glass half-empty'_ mood at the moment. "At least _one_ of you is getting your comeuppance for when you make me dress like a bloody harem girl in November." Her frown took on a more curious cast, and she asked, "Wait, when did you two even have the time to cook up this little bit of humiliation? We've been together almost the entire time since we arrived."

Harry was sure his grin had split his cheeks in twain. "Oh, it was while you were with your parents in Australia but before she left for Siberia. The topic came up randomly, and we couldn't seem to agree." His loves' twin grumbles were music to his ears.

"Laugh while you can," Hermione warned. "You have to write these essays, too. I'm sure to enjoy it when you have your own meltdown."

He chuckled gently at that, much to their consternation. "Three things. First, I spent ten years as the Dursleys' drudge; boring, pointless work isn't something I'm unfamiliar with. Second, I can slack off and not do them at all if I want because, as I told Snape, only our exam scores matter this year." Hermione joined their girlfriend in assaulting the table via cranium. "And third, _I_ have a secret weapon."

"And just what would that be?"

He ignored her snarl and flicked a finger against the silver tiara resting upon his brow. "Ravenclaw was a certifiable genius. Her Diadem doesn't actually increase intelligence, but it _does_ give me perfect recall for everything I see and hear while wearing it. Add a time turner, an invisibility cloak, and a Pensieve, and I can knock out each of our assignments in about fifteen minutes." Leaning back in amusement from his girls' incredulous expressions, he continued idly, "Did you know that you can view a memory from several years ago with complete clarity in a Pensieve even if you can't actually recall it consciously? As long as you know what it was about and it hasn't been memory charmed away, it's not inaccessible."

His smugness disappeared as he heard two growls that would have been more at home to starving wolves. "I'm sure you simply _forgot_ to mention this solution to us, didn't you, my love?" Luna asked, her sweet voice at odds with the glare she fixed him with.

"Yes, of course," he answered swiftly. Perhaps he had preened a tad too much if the girls' menacing expressions were anything to go by. Both of them _despised_ tedium.

The blonde was all smiles at his response. "Good. Do you mind if we borrow this so we can finish our assignments as quickly as you did? Thank you very much!" With that, she snatched the Diadem off his head and scooped up her stack of parchment. "Coming, Mione?"

"But of course," Hermione answered as she picked up her much larger pile. "We'll see you in a couple of hours, Harry. You might not even have to worry too much about us defenestrating you by then." The two departed arm in arm.

He sighed, though not in response to the mostly-joking threat. It was just that there was no point in continuing with his book without the Diadem. G. S. Dramm was an excellent author — he certainly had to be to write a book detailing the theory behind potion ingredient reactions that was even slightly engaging — and the forty pages he had read up to this point had gone far in demystifying what was arguably the most important aspect of potion-brewing and one Snape had never deigned to teach them. The problem was that the text was so detailed that he knew he would never be able keep all the information straight without Ravenclaw's _magnum opus_ creating an exact copy of the pages in his memory; no matter how interesting and potentially rewarding the topic was, this was not something he ever wanted to have to reread. He did _not_ enjoy Potions.

To the empty room, he commented, "You know, holding that over their heads like I did was probably _not_ the brightest idea I've ever had."

* * *

It turned out that having the girls sequestered in the Room of Requirement was a benefit in disguise. Closing the trapdoor quietly, Harry whipped his invisibility cloak around himself. Students were only allowed to go to Hogsmeade on the third weekend of the month, so there were no customers in Honeydukes when he stole through the shop and out the door, the streets likewise abandoned. _How in the world does this village support itself if it's practically a ghost town for thirty days out of the month?_, he wondered.

Still, that emptiness worked to his advantage here. He moved to one side of the building and cast a notice-me-not charm over the short alleyway it made with Scrivinshaft's Quill Shop just in case. Hidden from any potential prying eyes, he stuffed the Hallow into a space-extended pocket. Now came the interesting part.

Transfiguring a mirror from a piece of trash, he examined his reflection critically. When using glamours to disguise himself, it was best that the changes were as small as possible if he wanted them to last more than a few minutes. A twirl of his wand changed his raven hair to a sandy blonde, and he followed the charm with a hair-lengthening jinx. _My hair has to be legitimately cursed_, he thought as he stopped the spell when the strands hit shoulder length, _because nothing can straighten the damn thing out._ Gathering the mess, he conjured a tie to hold it in a loose tail.

Next came the eyes, possibly his most distinguishing feature. They were stubbornly green, so much so that they shook off illusions placed over them quite easily. Still, he could and did shift them to a darker hue, more emerald than the _Avada Kedavra_ shade they normally were. Changing the shape of his eyes to give him a hint of a squint was a cantrip in comparison. While the ovoid silver glasses he had purchased over the summer would likely throw any casual observer off his trail, it never hurt to be cautious, especially when he was trying to outsmart Dumbledore should the old man become curious of someone asking questions about his pet fortune teller. A conjuration and minor transfiguration later, he slipped the originals into his pocket with the cloak and put on the golden half-moons normally found only on manipulative headmasters.

One last spell turned his school robes to a navy set that would not garner a second glance anywhere in Wizarding Britain. As safely disguised as he could be short of human transfiguration or Polyjuice, he left the alcove and made his way to the Three Broomsticks. Perhaps there he could shed some light on the mystery of Trelawney's interview.

The problem was simple enough: he had no idea what actually happened that night so long ago. The drunken Seeress's memories had already proven to be false, and the only others he was sure knew what happened were Dumbledore and Snape, neither of whom would be willing to share their experiences. The entire end of the first Voldemort war hinged on that single meeting between the three: his parents' murder, his own fame as the Boy-Who-Lived, and not least of all, the 'destiny' that had shaped his entire life. Try as he might to push it aside, the questions had burned inside him since the revelation Monday night. It was a good thing he had the Diadem to assist him with his homework; he had found himself going over the sparse facts he knew for certain whenever he had a free moment. No matter how much he twisted them, they refused to make a coherent picture. He just knew too little, though one thing was certain.

Dumbledore going out of his way to meet in a public place with a prospective teacher who _just so happened_ to give a prophecy relevant to the war while a Marked Death Eater _just so happened_ to be there and _just so happened_ to take an interest in what should have been a normal job interview was far too convenient to be sheer coincidence.

That was why he was here. While the old man might have altered Trelawney's memory to hide the truth, it was entirely possible that there were others around that night who he had not had a chance to manipulate. Harry suspected that the meeting did take place in a pub, though obviously not the Hog's Head. The Three Broomsticks, however, was known to have rooms available for arranging meetings, and if this was where Trelawney's interview _did_ take place — and assuming his bipolar luck chose to side _with_ him rather than against today — then Madam Rosmerta just might have been a witness to what occurred. Hopefully she would still remember after sixteen years.

Unlike the rest of the town, the bar was quite full, and he had to spend a moment looking around for an empty table. Eventually finding one, he sat and flicked his wand in Rosmerta's direction from under the table. His compulsion cast, the buxom redhead meandered over. "Well, I've never seen you around here before. I'm Rosie, the owner of this bar."

"Charles Flinders," he replied with a smile. "And you wouldn't have seen me; I wasn't one of those rich enough to afford to attend Hogwarts."

She smiled. "Most aren't; I know I wasn't." A second surreptitious spell had her pulling out the chair opposite him. "So, what brings you all the way up here?"

"A book, actually. I'm trying to write one on the history of the Ministry. Boring, I know," he laughed when she tried and failed to hide a grimace, "but it's what the publisher said he'd be willing to print. Maybe once people have heard of me, I'll be able to write what I want, but until then, I'm no Gilderoy Lockhart. Anyway, I'd heard you had rooms I could rent to meet people in."

"Yep, I do. My rates are pretty good, too. Two Galleons an hour."

He let his jaw fall in feigned surprise. "Well, that will certainly cut down on my savings. I guess you make a fortune off of Headmaster Dumbledore, though, if the rumors are right."

She pursed her lips for a moment before shaking her head. "If the rumors you're talking about are about how he's constantly hiring new teachers, yes, they're true, but he always does his interviews up in the castle."

_Damn it._ This and the Leaky Cauldron were the only places he could think of where Dumbledore might have arranged a 'private' interview where Snape would have a pseudo-legitimate reason to be there in the first place, and Tom, the barman at the Cauldron, was much older than Rosmerta. The chances of him remembering that far back were essentially zero. "He never meets with a prospective professor here? That's a shame. I bet his office doesn't have nearly as good of drinks as you do."

"Oh, you flatterer!" she said with a smile. "Most of them come over for a drink afterwards, anyway, so I still make some money off them, though sometimes I think my best customers are the teachers who _do_ get the job rather than the poor sods who don't."

"Really? Teaching a bunch of kids can't be _that_ much trouble." _I may as well leave. Maybe, if I'm supremely lucky, Tom will remember Dumbledore and Trelawney._

"You'd be surprised. Hagrid, the professor for Care, drinks mead by the barrel, and Trelawney…"

She paused, her eyes unfocused as if she was reaching into her memories. Spotting an opportunity, he sent a third compulsion at her; it wasn't much, just a push to be a little more open than she already had been. "Trelawney? Who is that?"

"Trelawney is the Divination professor," Rosmerta answered slowly, "and I just remembered that she _did_, in fact, have an interview here." There was a party beginning in Harry's mind at those words. "That was… maybe fifteen years ago or so? In fact, Professor Dumbledore was looking at two people who wanted to teach that day. It's the only time he's ever met anyone in my rooms, not that I blame him with what happened."

Harry froze in place, all internal celebrations forgotten. _**Two**__ interviews? Who else was he talking to besides Trelawney?_ Doing his best to steady his voice, for he knew it would shake with emotion were he not careful, he asked, "Oh? What happened?"

"Well, I went up to check if they wanted anything to drink when I spotted the other person who was going to be interviewed lurking outside the room the room the Professor was in at the time. I yelled at him, and Professor Dumbledore opened the door and started telling him off, too. Right disappointed he was at such rudeness, let me tell you… Are you all right?"

He blinked rapidly; his eyes had grown wide as he listened to the story. "I'm fine, just shocked that someone would do something like that. Was there something interesting going on inside that had grabbed his attention?"

"Not that I can think of," she said with a shrug.

_So that means Trelawney was finished when Rosmerta arrived; I know from personal experience that she is loud and incredibly hard to ignore when she starts making real prophecies. I'm sure I know who this _'he'_ is too, but just to be sure…_ "Who was the man that was eavesdropping, by the way?" he asked, trying his best to make it sound like an mere afterthought.

"Oh, it was Severus Snape, the Potions professor. He got the job he had wanted in the end, though it was only after the war was over."

This… this was exactly what he had been hoping for. Removing the compulsions he had laid upon her with a covert jab of his wand, he said, "Well, I'm glad everything worked out for him eventually."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Rosmerta said with a blush. She stood quickly. "I've been talking all this time and haven't offered you a drink. Can I get you something?"

Several minutes later, he was still sitting there, his butterbeer almost untouched. _Dumbledore manipulated Trelawney's memories so she would think she was in the Hog's Head instead of the Three Broomsticks, but why? Because she had rented a room in Aberforth's bar? To keep people from doing exactly what I did and come here looking for answers? Even if that is the explanation, there was still no reason not to meet in his office, and it doesn't answer the question of how she noticed Snape coming in halfway through._

_Okay, Harry, step back and look at what you __**do**__ know. Dumbledore arranged interviews for both Trelawney and Snape on the same day and in the same place. Snape got curious, or perhaps was acting on Voldemort's orders. Trelawney couldn't have been interrupted while giving the prophecy, nor would Snape have kept part of it secret from Voldemort, so the only logical answer is that she only recited half of it to begin with. That still makes no sense; how could she only give __**half**__ a prophecy?_

_Ignoring that for a moment, why would Dumbledore arrange an interview with Snape there and then? It's almost like he __**wanted**__ Snape to listen in, but I can't figure out for the life of me why. It isn't like he could force her to make… a… prophecy… Oh, Merlin. What did she say, that she felt faint because she hadn't eaten much that day? Confusion, disorientation, maybe a sense of dissociation? That wasn't a prophecy!_

He nearly ran out of the bar, ducking around a building to throw the invisibility cloak about him. Luckily, there was still no one in Honeydukes, for he would not have cared whose attention he gained tearing through the shop to the tunnel that would take him back to Hogwarts. He needed to have the girls check his deductions.

If he was right, Voldemort was _not_ the one ultimately to blame for his parents' deaths.

_Dumbledore_ was.

* * *

Never was Harry more thankful for the peculiarities of Death's own cloak. As soon as he left the tunnel under the one-eyed witch's statue, he shifted into his falcon form and flew like the hounds of hell were on his tail feathers. Dodging stairs when they moved into his path, he rapidly reached the seventh floor and soared to the deserted hallway that held the entrance to the Room of Requirements. He returned to a human shell, his disguise stripped away by his self-transfiguration, tugged the cloak off, and flung the door open.

_Yes, because __**this**__ is certainly getting their assignments done_, he thought sourly as he entered and closed the door behind him. Stepping over discarded shirts and knickers, he soon stood next to the gigantic bed that filled the Room. "Wakey, wakey. I need to pick your big, beautiful brains for a bit."

Luna cracked open an eye from where she was using Hermione's abdomen as a pillow. She whined, "Can't it wait for another few hours?"

He took a deep breath to calm himself, doing his best to ignore the smell from the girls' activities that action brought to his attention. "Love, I'm about a step away from barging into Dumbledore's office and strangling him with his own bloody beard before displaying his corpse in the middle of the bloody Great Hall. No, it can't wait." Despite his best attempts, his voice still came out in a snarl.

"Huh?" Hermione looked up at him with a bleary gaze. "What's the old man done this time?"

"He _willfully_ and _deliberately_ set my parents and me up to be murdered that Halloween."

He now had the full focus of both his lovers, and they untangled themselves from their postcoital embrace to stand and face him fully. With a blink of Hermione's eyes, the Room changed to a perfect replica of the Grangers' living room. "Explain," she said as she wrapped herself in her school robe.

Dropping onto the leather sofa, he clutched Luna desperately when she plopped, still naked, into his lap. What he had heard clearly distressed him more than he had previously believed. "Since you two were going to be busy for a while — though I believe I remember something about doing _homework_," he added with a gimlet eye, "I snuck into Hogsmeade…" Filling his audience in about his conversation with Rosmerta took only a couple of minutes, then he leaned into the cushions and let them mull over it.

"Every question we answer raises two more," commented Hermione at last. "Unless you're holding critical information back, I don't have enough clues to put together a coherent picture."

"Same here. Are you _sure_ wearing the Diadem for so long didn't increase your intelligence?" the blonde quipped weakly.

"Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, or maybe I'm just barking, but I think this meeting with Dumbledore was Trelawney's _second_ interview for the Divination position."

The older girl frowned. "Second? I'm lost; why would she need a second interview?"

"If I'm right, she went to Dumbledore's office for her first one, which is where she originally gave the prophecy. He wiped her memory and arranged to talk with her in the rooms over the Three Broomsticks some days later, but he also called Snape, possibly regarding taking over Slughorn's place as the Potions professor. I'm not sure on that one, but it really doesn't matter. Once both his pieces were in their proper places, he stalled Trelawney until Snape started skulking around, then she repeated the prophecy."

"But prophecy doesn't work that way!" Luna cried. "You can't have Seers just parrot the same things over and over. They don't have any control over what predictions they give."

Harry chuckled mirthlessly. "No, they don't, but she wasn't responsible for this, either. I've never enjoyed the full experience myself due to my natural talents, but can either of you tell me what spell presents with light-headedness and a sense of depersonalization that leaves the people under it with no influence over what their bodies are doing?"

Hermione chewed on her lip for a moment, then her eyes grew wide and her face paled. "The Imperius Curse."

"Exactly. Why in the world was a Death Eater in the right place at the right time to overhear a warning of the impending birth of the _one person_ who could take down his master? Dumbledore arranged for him to be there in the first place. It also explains how she could notice Snape being caught, yet he only heard the first half; that's all Dumbledore had her recite. Snape carried the prophecy to Voldemort, Voldemort came after us, and destiny came into play."

"No, surely you're wrong," Luna said, her eyes flicking back and forth between her companions. "Dumbledore's a self-righteous old goat who has his head shoved so far up his arse he can't smell his own shit anymore, yeah, but to aim a megalomaniacal psychopath at a family, one with a newborn? One where the parents were fighting on his side of the war? That's not manipulative or controlling; that's outright _evil_."

He growled menacingly. "When hasn't the bastard ever swept away all his despicable actions with his damned _'Greater Good'_ justification? If it gives him the opportunity to get rid of a Dark Lord he had a hand in creating, what does the betrayal of people who trust him to keep them safe matter?"

Hermione sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him; Luna spun about on his lap and did the same. "Voldemort may have been the one wielding the wand, but Dumbledore set the whole thing up. He's just as culpable as Voldemort, and when we're through taking down the Death Eaters, he'll be just as dead. I'm going to kill the bastard with my own two hands for the crimes he's committed against me and my family." Neither girl had anything to say to that.

* * *

**Does anyone have an idea for Luna's forfeit? I cannot think of a single one.**

**Please recall from chapter 11 that Harry has a natural talent for various mind magics. Since in canon he was able to throw off the Imperius Curse the first time he was under it, it isn't much of a leap to say that he could very well experience that Curse differently from normal people.**

* * *

**Faraway-R, ****jadesabrexiv**: The name Ix was a nod to Anne McCaffrey's _Freedom_ series. Not her best work, but an interesting storyline nonetheless.

**elmoryakhan:** Snape gets his comeuppance next chapter. McGonagall isn't _dumb_, per se, just so used to listening to Dumbledore that going against him isn't on her normal list of options.

**mageofmyth:** When dealing with moronic Ministers, petulant Potions professors, and trying teenagers, the laced lemon drops keep him from losing his temper, which, while understandable, would wholly wreck his "kindly old grandfather" reputation. Molly did have a little money left over, and she had already promised Ron a new broom as per canon.

**ubetiburn:** My guess is that he crammed enough in at the very end of the year to scrape by in his exams; there's also the fact that he's grown up around magic his entire life, so he has to have picked _something_ up in that time. Then again, this _is_ the wizard-raised kid who thought "Sunshine, daisies, butter-mellow…" was a real spell, so who the hell knows?

**smeehee:** Thank you! _Finally_, someone who gets it. I did not have any plans for the Vanishing Cabinets, though that is a good one. They'll just have to grab the mate. Oh, Borgin…

**Silently Watches out.**


	27. Requiescat in Dolore

**I'd like to thank everyone who made suggestions for Luna's forfeit. Quite a few of them were good, but two really stood out. You'll find out which those are at the proper time ; )**

**On another note, I lied last time. **_**This**_** is the final chapter dealing with the Prophecy Mystery. Also, the first scene is kind of dark for this fic.**

**Disclaimer: ** Did we ever discover the requirements for gaining Voldemort's Mark? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 27  
****Requiescat in Dolore**

Eyes sharper than any human's watched a most tempting piece of prey. Stringy black hair covered the man's head as he patrolled the castle corridors, grumbling with every step. The predator paid no heed to his complaints; after six years of being forced to listen to his unending vitriol, it had little desire to do so of its own volition. Instead, spreading narrow wings, the falcon dropped from its perch high on a neighboring staircase and glided after its quarry.

The bird soared past Snape, unseen and unheard, before settling softly on the ground ten feet from him. In an instant, the avian form had returned to a human guise, the magic rendering it invisible solidifying into a cloak with the same effect. Harry stood and waited for the Death Eater to walk past him, then aimed his acacia wand. "_Stupefy_," he whispered, the jet of scarlet leaping from the tip of the wood to slam into the dark-robed back before his target knew he was there.

_That should do it_, he thought, using a trainer-clad foot to roll the man onto his back. _Now, Snivellus, let's see what light you can shed on my little mystery._ Casting an area charm to repel house-elves from one of the few hallways devoid of portraits or suits of armor before pulling the hood of the Cloak off his head, he forced pallid eyelids open and stared into cold, black eyes as he rested his wand against Snape's temple. A smirk appearing as he realized the irony of their current situation, he solemnly intoned, "_Legilimens_."

He immediately encountered Snape's Occlumency barriers, not that those could stop him. No matter how much experience the professor — and Harry used the term loosely — had in protecting his secrets, maintaining mental defenses while unconscious was an order of magnitude more difficult than doing so when awake and aware. Harry, for instance, still had trouble keeping his own shields up when he was asleep, and he had been practicing the discipline for going on six years now.

Of course, he had a reason for weak shields, and though it made keeping his secrets more difficult, particularly when said secrets involved a certain blonde's Christmas presents, he was more than happy with what he received in return. His natural talent for mind magics, including Legilimency, left him well-armed for tonight's plan.

The probes of many Legilimens, of which Snape's was a typical example, were magical battering rams, breaking down doors to access people's thoughts and memories. His own, however, was more like a lockpick; subtle, focused, and leaving far less evidence of his intrusion. _Not that it will matter_, he admitted to himself as he ignored the faint twisting sensation he normally felt when bypassing strong shields. _He won't remember when I'm through with him, after all._

His goal was simple; he wanted, needed, to know if the theory he had developed earlier that day in Hogsmeade was correct. _After all, it __**is**__ possible that I'm being exceedingly paranoid and assigning blame to Dumbledore that he doesn't actually deserve this time. It partly depends on if my luck was the same while I was in Mum's womb as it is now._ There existed the chance, however small it was, that the fates had simply and truly conspired against him and brought Snape, Dumbledore, and Trelawney into close proximity before unleashing the prophecy. _It wouldn't explain why the old goat was meeting the two of them in a public place for job interviews, but I'll focus on figuring that out should I be proven wrong._

He dived into the dungeon bat's memories.

_Severus crept up to the door, sneer in place as he heard a woman's airy-fairy tones seeping from the room inside. "And next, the hanged man. Sacrifice for a greater purpose…" His expression became more severe if such a thing was possible. Everyone with even a modicum of intelligence knew that Divination was a crock._

_He was therefore surprised and, not that he would ever admit it, somewhat unnerved when the quavering voice trailed off only to be replaced by a harsh and guttural rasp. "__**The One with the Power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice Defied him, born as the Seventh Month dies…**__"_

_Perhaps he had been hasty in __**completely**__ dismissing the subject out of hand._

"_Extraordinary," he heard Dumbledore whisper._

_Light footsteps echoed in the quiet stairwell, and the buxom barmaid stopped as she spotted him. She shrieked, "What in Merlin's name are you doing!" That was when the door opened to reveal a pair of sparkling blue eyes._

Harry pulled himself out of the memory; the grimy bastard had just corroborated at least part of Rosmerta's tale. _As well as my own suspicion. Trelawney had already finished 'reciting' the prophecy when he was caught. That also explains why Voldemort went ahead and attacked us even though Rookwood never brought him the Ministry's recording; he probably just wanted confirmation that Snape hadn't made up the whole thing._ He sighed. _Which means that Dumbledore really __**did**__ serve us up on a silver platter. Damn._

His wand was aimed at the downed man, ready to erase the memory of being stunned and mind-burgled, when he paused. It had not been of the utmost important during the Third Voldemort War, but Hermione had once wondered aloud what Death Eaters had to do to earn their Dark Marks. Considering that he had an unconscious member of that organization right here, it would be a shame to squander the opportunity. He slipped back through the door he had opened.

When he located the relevant memory, he was more grateful than he had ever been that it was impossible to vomit inside another person's head.

"_Severus," Voldemort hissed silkily in greeting, "what entertaining diversion have you arranged for us tonight?" A pale hand rose to include the four masked Death Eaters standing to one side, men who had already proven themselves sadistic and merciless._

_The nineteen year old wizard bowed low, but his smirk could be clearly heard. "The torture and death of a Muggle couple, my Lord."_

"_Indeed? Very well. Lead us to this place. Should I be pleased, I may even deem you worthy of bearing my Mark."_

_The scene shifted from to the inside of a small flat. Slumped against one wall was a young man, only twenty or so, next to a slightly younger woman, both dressed for what was clearly supposed to be a night out on the town. Harry mentally gasped as he laid eyes on her. _Mum?_, he wondered before shaking the thought away. She was clearly not his mother, but the two redheads certainly shared a great deal of resemblance._

_Snape drew his wand and indicated the male Muggle. "May I make a few adjustments before I begin?"_

"_Very well."_

_With a nod from the serpentine head, Snape proceeded to cast a glamour over the unconscious man, turning his blond hair black, then conjured a pair of bulky glasses in front of his eyes. _"Conspicor. Ennervate."_ The two Muggles woke, but other than their eyes, which began swinging wildly at the oddly-dressed people in their home, they did not move. He pointed his wand at the woman and commanded, "Come here and kneel, facing your husband." She slowly crept towards him, her movements jerky like those of a marionette. Once she was before him, Snape sharply kicked her in her shoulders, forcing her face into the floor, then he grabbed a handful of hair and wrenched her head back. Smiling evilly, he slashed his wand; the nonmagical man's shirt split open, and the pale rope of his intestines spilled out in a wash of crimson._

_The woman's silent crying redoubled, and then again when the callous wizard ripped open her short dress._

Harry could have ended the memory there; at that moment, there was nothing he wanted to do more. But he refused, tears of impotent fury streaming down his cheeks as he watched this innocent woman be repeatedly raped — first by Snape, then the other Death Eaters — in front of her dead husband. He could not help but feel that _someone_ should witness the torture this couple had suffered, someone who understood how twisted and _wrong_ the whole scene was. Someone who would seek justice for them. _All this for the amusement of some vile, depraved… __**monsters**__._ Only when a flash of green ripped her life away and sent her to reunite with her lost love did he pull out of Snape's mind.

"_Petrificus totalis sine capite. Silencio. Ennervate._" He paced for a moment, then turned his attention to the man whose head was thrashing wildly on the stone floor. "You _disgust_ me, Snape. You raped and murdered that woman, all for what? A fancy little tattoo? The fact that you chose her because she resembled my mum and magicked her husband to look like my dad is just the icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned."

He glared at the sallow face as a thought sprang to mind. "Why did you beg Voldemort to spare my mum? What was your motivation? _Finite silencio_."

"Potter, you little shit! I'll have you —"

"_Imperio_," he snarled, his hatred more than enough to fetter the Death Eater's will. "Answer the bloody question."

Snape's voice was calm and measured, a far cry from what he normally sounded like in Harry's presence. "I wanted to show her that it was a mistake to choose that arrogant fool Potter over me. I wanted her to hurt like I hurt."

The pieces fell into place. "You planned to turn her into your own personal sex toy, didn't you?"

"Of course. What other use would a Mudblood slag have besides serving her betters on her back?"

Only once had Harry ever aimed the Killing Curse at a living person, when Ron had lead a small army of Death Eaters into Grimmauld Place to destroy the Order. The redhead's primary aim had been to kill him and take Hermione for the exact same purpose that Snape had for his mother, and in the process almost killing the two women who meant more to Harry than anything else in the world. Due to what that spell had taken from him, he had made a promise to himself that he would never use it in anger again, nor would he cast it against another human. Regardless, right now, he was really, _really_ tempted to forget his oath and strike Snape down like the mad dog he was.

_No, I won't do that, not to him. The Killing Curse is just too __**gentle**__ to be considered an appropriate punishment._ With a sharp nod, he demanded, "What were the names of the couple you murdered to gain your Dark Mark?"

"I don't know."

"You don't _know_?" He grit his teeth as his rage surged again. "You don't even know who those people were? Why not?"

Snape was placid as he responded, "Why should I care about a pair of worthless Muggles? It's not like they mattered. She deserved it, anyway, for reminding me of Lily."

_Much, __**much**__ too gentle._

Any lingering shred of remorse now burned away, Harry shoved his mind back into Snape's own, shattering shields as he barreled through them with none of his usual finesse. Memories of various Death Eaters flashed before him, the information absorbed subconsciously even as they were replaced with the next in line: names, addresses, favorite spells, personal habits, crimes. Oh, so many crimes. He ripped his probes out when he had what he wanted, his rampaging emotions still not satisfied. Spinning away from the slime at his feet, he stared at a single stone in the castle walls, forcing himself to be calm, at least as calm as the situation required. It took close to ten minutes before he could look at Snape without wanting to destroy him then and there, though that time also gave him an excellent idea for what to do with the man.

Silencing the fiend in human skin again before the Imperius wore off, he dispelled the charm shielding their location from house-elves' notice. "Dobby! Take both of us to Snape's private quarters!" With a sudden violent lurching, the empty corridor was replaced with a stuffy study.

"Master Harry?" Dobby asked timidly from his side. Harry supposed he must look quite deranged if even the obsessively obsequious elf was behaving fearfully like this. "Is you all right?"

He sighed and answered honestly, "No, Dobby, I'm not all right. I just found out that this… _thing_," he kicked Snape sharply in the ribs, "gets off on torturing and murdering innocents, people who don't even know we _exist_, let alone have anything to do with us. For all the people whose lives he cut short, he will die tonight." Expecting shock or horror, he turned to the elf and was surprised to find an expression of comprehension.

"He is like Bad Old Master, then?"

"Yes, he's like Lucius Malfoy."

"Dobby understands." Pausing a moment, he continued, "Master Harry be killing Bad Old Master, too?"

"I plan to," the out-of-time wizard answered with a nod.

The elf smiled sadly, and yet not a little cruelly. "Good. Bad Old Family deserves it. Does Master Harry need anything else?"

"Could you keep the other elves from noticing where we are or saving Snape?" he requested. "I'll need your help again in a moment." The elf snapped his fingers while Harry flicked his wand at the bare floor near Snape's head. A large cauldron flew into the room to that exact spot, and another wave of acacia enlarged it to a size that a man could comfortably sit in. _Or not so comfortably when all is said and done_. He levitated the stiff professor into the overlarge pot and, after two jets of grey light shattered Snape's femurs so that he would fit with only his head above the rim, conjured a stream of water until it was full. "There, that should do. Dobby, would you please spell the cauldron to a temperature just before the water starts boiling and have it stay that warm for the next several hours?"

"Dobby can do, but…" Harry smiled as much as he could under the circumstances and indicated the elf to continue, "…what be Master Harry doing if nasty man becomes a ghost?"

"A ghost?" he asked nonplussed.

Dobby nodded. "Bad Old Master liked killing young witches and wizards, but he had a spell to get rid of ghosts if they be coming back. Dobby does not know it. Does Master?"

"Er, no." _Bloody hell, I never even thought about that. The __**last**__ thing I need at the moment is Snape's spector sticking around and telling Voldemort or Dumbledore who offed him._ Considering his options for a moment, he asked, "Would memory charming him prevent that?"

"Dobby does not know."

"He he he he heee."

At the creepy giggle, Harry spun around, his wand aimed at the source of the sound. A plump face, complete with wide grin and cruel, beady black eyes, slipped through the wall as if it were liquid. "Oh ho, Potty be doing something _naughty_."

_Peeves. Oh, tonight can't get __**any**__ better, can it? Who's next, Dumbledore and the Phoenix Quartet?_ "What are you doing here?"

"Peevesey heard nasty, nasty voices coming from a hallway, sounding like a student getting up to trouble. Then I saw it was _you_ having a spot of fun with old Snapey, and it wouldn't be right to not watch." The mischievous expression did not drop off the poltergeist's face so much as it shifted into one that somehow mixed ill humor and seriousness. "Now, did my ears hear right that ickle Potty needs help keeping a ghosty-whosty from haunting him? Peeves can get rid of him if you be wanting…"

Harry's eyes narrowed; the only times Peeves had ever been anything close to 'helpful' was when the Weasley twins ordered him to drive Umbridge round the bend and during the battle of Hogwarts. "What's the catch?"

"So Potty isn't as stupid now as he was when he was a student? Good, good." Harry gaped, prompting Peeves to let out another high-pitched cackle. The entity emerged the rest of the way out of the wall and hovered in front of him. "No catch, no games… this time. The Queen can't tell her champion how to play, but cleaning up after you? That she can help you with." Peeves frowned before continuing, "And even if she hadn't asked us to do that, the Winter Lady's taken an interest in you, too. If you got stopped, she'd be unhappy, and little miss Ice Bitch is even uglier than normal when she's angry."

_Queen? Winter Lady?_ Bits and pieces of information whirled together and finally made a coherent picture. "You have color, you're not transparent, you love pranks, you can touch anything you want, and you feel pain." He smiled at that, recalling Lupin shooting a wad of gum into Peeves's nose. "My first year, the ghosts even said you weren't one of them. In the centuries you've been living in the castle, how did no one realize that you're fae?"

The revealed faery shrugged. "Humans are idiots." _That_ Harry couldn't dispute at the moment.

"So…" he began, "if Snape comes back, you can send him on to his eternal punishment or whatever?"

"Something like that," Peeves agreed. "My brother did the same for that old man you snuffed when you robbed his house. Don't get used to it, though. Now that you know, we won't help you if you're careless and expect us to make everything better." The prankster spirit glowered at him. "We _don't_ like being taken for granted."

Harry swallowed, not liking the malicious edge to that warning. "No taking you for granted, got it. I bet that if we did, you'd go out of your way to make our lives difficult, champions or not, right?" Peeves nodded. "Well, then, tha—" He snapped his mouth closed, remembering Lilith's words from the one time they had spoken. "I mean, I'm glad we were able to have this little chat. With this in your hands, I'm sure it will be properly taken care of."

"Oh, poo. You're learning," the fae pouted.

He shrugged and erased Snape's memory of the night, just in case. Stunning him would probably also keep him from becoming a ghost, but Harry wanted Snape to enjoy the full agonizing experience. "Okay, Dobby, let's cook the bastard and get out of here."

"Yes, Master Harry!" A clap of Dobby's hands had the bottom of the gigantic cauldron glowing cherry red. After another sudden jerk, the pair were back in the Gryffindor fifth-year dorm. "Do Master Harry or his missies need anything else?"

"I don't think so, but go ahead and check that they're sleeping okay before you return to the Manor. We'll probably stop by sometime tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Really," he said with a wicked grin. "We have an empty Death Eater abode to rob, after all."

* * *

Spinner's End, Harry observed, was a decidedly gloomy place. The houses were deserted, the animals were silent, and even the grass and trees were withered and grey. With false cheer, he asked, "Well, girls, shall we get started?"

"No reason not to," Hermione replied, edging closer to him as they walked down the empty street. "I wonder why there's no one here."

Luna turned to face them, her silver eyes bright and twinkling from the magesight charm applied by the wandtip at her temple. "Oh, that's simple; there is a Muggle-repelling charm over this entire block. I guess Snape didn't want to risk anyone seeing magical belongings and was too cheap to buy a summer home in a more isolated location. Of course, he's also massively diminished his real estate value. Few enough people would pay top-galleon for a house in the middle of a Muggle town like this anyway, let alone when it's so derelict."

"Point to you, love," the brunette replied.

"It certainly works out in our favor," he noted, glancing once more over the boarded windows. "No witnesses, especially good since _someone_ hasn't finished the disguises yet."

Luna rolled her eyes at his mock chastisement. "I told you, they're almost ready. I should be done by Wednesday or Thursday, definitely in time to raid the Greengrasses next Saturday. Besides, I clearly remember all of us agreeing that we shouldn't pull a heist every weekend."

"I know, I know, but we have only a small window of opportunity here. Dumbledore shouldn't realize that there's a pot of Snape stew on the boil until tomorrow, but as soon as he does, he'll probably get the bat's property ceded to him. After that, there's little chance we'll find anything valuable."

"Little enough chance now," Hermione muttered.

Sniffing disparagingly, the blonde skipped a mite faster to pull ahead of them. "And as I said this morning, I have a good feeling about today. Wards are in sight," she suddenly announced; the other two drew their wands in preparation. "Keyed Apparation, no surprise; anti-Portkey; phoenix-repelling, how interesting… In fact, the only one I see that would pose even a minor problem is the proximity ward, but since that one's an open ward and the recipient is dead, it might as well not even be there. We can walk right in through the front door."

"Check for mines," he said seriously. They did not want a repeat of the Lestrange debacle. Having just _one_ of his girls that furious with him was bad enough; both would be intolerable.

"Nope, no mines, no animated statues, no traps of any kind. About the only possible obstacles are plants or creatures, and let's be honest, can you see Snape using either of those?" Acknowledging her point, they moved forwards quickly but still slightly cautiously. Once at the door, they double-checked the outer walls for charms before they unlocked it with a simple _Alohomora_ and waltzed right in.

"So… this is it?" Hermione asked as they glanced over the dilapidated sitting room. "I don't think the quid we'd receive from that sofa would be worth taking it, and that's the best piece of furniture I can see. About the only valuable objects are those books."

"Of which there are many."

"Yes, Luna, there are many, but considering that we probably won't sell them, it wouldn't increase our bank account."

Harry snorted lightly as he moved away to investigate the bookshelves. "Mione, our vault holds just shy of 150 thousand galleons; I don't think we need to worry about it just yet. Besides, this house may hold more secrets than we're giving it credit for."

"Oh? Like what?"

Stepping back a couple of paces, he raised his space-extended burlap sack and summoned all the books from several shelves in the middle of the set. With that done, he gestured sharply with his wand; a loud groan proceeded the bookcase ripping itself off the wall and falling to the ground. Behind it was a narrow staircase. "Like that, for instance."

Both girls gaped for a minute, though Luna was the first to regain her voice. "Harry, how in the world did you even know that was there?"

"When you're beaten for leaving the tiniest speck of dirt in the kitchen, you get very, very good at spotting small details. I noticed that though all of the bookcases were identical, the shelves on this one were a full centimeter higher than the rest of them. From the pole on the top and the hole in the wall," he pointed to each of them in turn, "I suspect this was to keep the case off the floor so it could be used as a door."

Hermione blinked a few times before admitting, "Okay, maybe there are a few secrets, after all."

He nodded with a smile before stepping over the case and into the dark stairwell. With two wands behind him acting as torches, he easily noticed the jars and barrels stored in the room at the bottom with a number of cauldrons of different metals. "I think this is his private lab."

"He has access to the potions lab in the dungeons all year long," the bushy-headed bookworm said. "Why would he need one in the middle of nowhere, even if he does live here over the summer?"

Luna's gasp grabbed their attention. "Because he doesn't have to worry about people finding rare and illegal ingredients if he hides them here." She turned to them and pulled her left arm out of a barrel she had opened at random. Clenched in her hand was a glistening lump of silvery muscle.

"Love, is that what I think it is?"

"Yes, Harry, it is. Unicorn heart. Possessing one of these is a full year in Azkaban." She lowered it gently back into the barrel. "There must be several dozen here. Considering how few unicorn poachers there are, this would have cost a small fortune in Knockturn."

They looked about the room again with new comprehension. _If all of these contain ingredients like that one did, the amount of gold this room represents is staggering_, he thought in awe. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that potions that require things like this are even more expensive than the components."

"Expensive, difficult to brew, and extremely potent," Hermione confirmed. "Regardless of the legality or lack thereof, St. Mungo's orders _questionable_ potions from 'anonymous' brewers from time to time. The potion name is never given, just the purpose and time constraints; that way, if the DMLE were ever to investigate, the Healers would have plausible deniability on their side. It's complete fiction, of course, and everybody involved knows about it, but since they're the only hospital in the entire country, no one is going to ask too many questions. It wouldn't do for the Aurors to be without somewhere to send their wounded."

"Play in politics long enough, and the shit eventually stops stinking," he muttered cynically.

"Pretty much."

A clearing of the blonde's throat recalled them from their conversation. While they were talking, Luna had emptied the room of its contents. "If you two are done nattering, we should pack up the rest of the books and look for any other secret passages."

It was in the fourth and last hidden room that they hit real pay dirt. "For once, Snape being a curmudgeonly old bastard works to our advantage," Harry laughed, shrinking the reinforced, space-extended chest full of gold and shoving it inside his pocket rather than his bag; putting one expanded space inside another rarely ended well. "I guess not even the goblins wanted him inside their bank."

"That or he was too paranoid to trust them. I could see it going either way." Hermione tied her own sack to her belt and led them up through the trapdoor in the pantry floor. "Do you think that's everything?"

"It should be; the house isn't that large. We don't have a lot of time to waste poking around fruitlessly, either," Luna said as they walked out of the kitchen and back into the sitting room. "So, should we leave our mark and get out of here?"

Harry shook his head. "Not this time. Leaving it at the homes of regular Death Eaters or other Pureblood supremacists is all well and good, but if it's in the home of Dumbledore's pet dungeon bat? That might be enough for him to shift his attention from the battle to keep control of the school onto our heists once we really get going. No, I say we just torch the place and destroy any evidence we left behind."

The girls cast fire-containing charms around the property while he went back inside and unleashed gouts of flame in several carefully chosen spots, all burning even faster thanks to a few bottles of cheap spirits they had found in yet another secret chamber. When the trio departed, the blaze was bequeathing Spinner's End with some much-awaited color.

* * *

"**Requiescat in dolore" means "rest in pain". Appropriate, no?**

**I believe I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Looking at all the evidence presented to us in canon, particularly the train wreck that was book 7, Snape definitively **_**did not**_** love Lily; he was simply obsessed with her. That this and a fangirl finally snagging the object of her decade-long desire (including disturbing hints about the potential use of magical Rohypnol) are touted as examples of "True Love" makes me very concerned about J.K.'s own marriage.**

* * *

**Zaralann:** Dumbles hid the second half of the Prophecy from Voldie so Mr. Snake-Face wouldn't realize that coming after Harry was a Bad Idea™.

**jadesabrexiv:** Who will have the most disgraceful end? I'm not really sure, honestly. You already saw what I did to Snape, and I think my plans for the other four are also rather fitting.

**lordblink:** This story is "fade-to-black/fill-in-the-blanks" when it comes to sexual content, I'm afraid, as are all my works; lemons are just something I can't write well. No, this is the currently only site I post my work on, though I'm thinking about going over to hpfanficarchive as well.

**Silently Watches out.**


	28. Problems with Authority

**It's a very important day today. This story is officially one whole year old! And yet somehow we're still in **_**September**_**…**

**Disclaimer:** Did Hogwarts contain numerous broom closets and a squib caretaker, even though house-elves did all the work keeping the castle clean? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 28  
****Problems with Authority**

On Monday morning, Harry was sure that Snape's remains had been discovered. The dour Death Eater rarely set foot in the Great Hall during the weekends, presumably having his meals delivered by house-elf to his rooms, but as soon as the school week started, he would again be sitting at his usual place two seats to the right of Dumbledore's ornate throne. Today, however, that chair was empty, as were the other four at the center of the table belonging to the headmaster and the heads of houses. _Still, I thought we would at least get through breakfast before they noticed something was amiss._

"What are the chances he calls in the DMLE?"

Harry turned to fix his blonde lover with a confident gaze. "Considering he covered up unicorn poaching, basilisk attacks, Sirius breaking into the dorms while everyone was asleep, and Malfoy nearly killing several people while failing to assassinate him? Practically zero."

She grimaced in an attempt to smile and nodded at that bit of logic. Before they could start back in on their breakfasts, the subject of their discussion strode into the Hall, his gait stiff from some emotion, though exactly what that was Harry could not tell. Dumbledore stopped at the front of the room and faced the student body. "Early this morning," the old man began, his voice shaking in restrained fury, "Professor Snape was found severely injured in his private quarters. He has been transferred to St. Mungo's for treatment, and I am confident he will make a full recovery."

Dumbledore waited for the hubbub to die off; his affect was not improved by the muted cheering coming from three of the tables. "That said, the conditions in which he was found are well beyond the farthest boundaries of good taste. This was no prank, but rather outright assault. If you are responsible for this act, I recommend that you come forward and confess. The punishment you receive will be harsh, but should I have to learn the facts of the matter from Professor Snape once he regains consciousness, I will have no choice but to expel the student or students who had a hand in this and turn them over to the DMLE for prosecution. If you have any information about the identity of this perpetrator, I ask that you also come and speak to a member of staff. Whatever you have to say, we will hold your name in strictest confidence.

"Finally, all classes have been cancelled this morning due to the investigation, though our normal schedule will resume after lunch. Anyone who wishes to contribute a small token to wish Professor Snape a quick recovery may leave them in his office." His announcements made, the headmaster swept out of the hall again, robes flapping in a similar fashion to the late Potions professor's.

Harry turned back to Luna, who he noted was looking a mite pale. He whispered, "Don't worry, it was all a bluff. We're perfectly safe."

"Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent. I had Dobby check on him last night, and he was most definitely dead and undisturbed. Even if he weren't, I memory charmed him before I left. The old man's just trying to scare us into incriminating ourselves."

She nodded and straightened, just in time to catch sight of the regular flock of owls enter the Hall through the windows cut high in the wall. "I wonder what today's news will bring."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Hermione replied, looking up from where she had been slumped over between them with her head resting in her hands. She blinked rapidly, her eyes clearing and a frown appearing on her face. "Actually, isn't today when Umbridge is supposed to get her big promotion?"

He shrugged and removed one of the avians' burdens. "Let's find out." Unrolling it, he immediately caught sight of the _Prophet's_ headline.

**MINISTRY SEEKS EDUCATIONAL REFORM  
****DOLORES UMBRIDGE APPOINTED FIRST-EVER "HIGH INQUISITOR"**

"I'd say that's a yes," he answered, skimming through the article for highlights. "_'Concerns voiced by anxious parents', 'immediate success', 'revolutionizing the teaching of Defense Against the Dark Arts', 'Dumbledore's controversial staff appointments'_, Marchbanks and Ogden resigning… Nothing that immediately pops out as different from last time." He passed the paper to the now-fully-awake brunette and leaned back to look around her at Luna again. "So, what's the plan for this morning since we have two free periods?"

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well, it's not like we have any pressing assignments to take care of. I'll probably keep working on the outfits, so you might as well finish off that Potions book you've been flipping through. Hermione… I have no idea, though she was complaining on Saturday that she was bored and might start up her experiments again. Do you think the Room can make popcorn?"

He snorted at that; Hermione in the midst of a research project was a sight to see. For all the scheduling and color-coding in her normal life, she had a bad habit of starting ten totally unrelated experiments at once, and though she was skilled in multitasking, at least two of them would inevitably interact badly to create explosions, strange smells, unusual charm effects, transmogrified rabbits, or some other unpredictable and chaotic result. He had been shocked the first time that happened, but over time he had noticed two recurring patterns: first, it never failed to provide a diversion to occupy the blonde and him for a short time, and second, the projects that blew up were always the least difficult or important ones. In fact, a curious glance over some of her notes at one point indicated that they were highly unlikely to pose any sort of threat when they eventually 'failed'.

Though he never sought confirmation, he was sure she was only ever working on _eight_ things at a time; the other two she set up purely for his and Luna's amusement.

"What outfits are you talking about?" Neville asked quietly as he plopped down across the table from them.

"Nothing," Harry quickly answered, though he frowned at the meek shift in the boy's frame at his tone. He had told himself that he would pull the Longbottom scion out of his shell now that the D.A. was not in the cards, but he had forgotten just how timid his fallen friend had once been. An excuse coming to mind, he continued in a softer voice, "Luna asked Hermione and I if we would join her Nargle-hunting this weekend. She didn't expect us to agree, though, so she's been busy making the outfits we'll need to sneak up on them." He cut his eyes to her and smiled slightly. "We've really got to work on your expectations."

Luna chose the incredibly mature action of a mentally twenty-four year old woman and promptly stuck her tongue out at him. Only Hermione sitting between them prevented his customary counterattack of trying to catch it with his own. _That might not be a bad idea, to be honest. Our normal games would certainly give Neville an education._

"Er, aren't Nargles, you know," Neville made a vague hand gesture, apparently unsure how to phrase what he wanted to say in a polite manner, "not real?"

"Technically, they're _undiscovered_. They may or may not be real, but we'll never know for certain if we don't search for them, will we? After all," the blonde drew herself up and looked exceedingly smug, "before this year, everyone thought I was crazy for believing in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, but Daddy and I found them. If Snorkacks are real, who's to say Nargles and Slashkilters and Heliopaths aren't?"

Harry grinned. "Very true, love, though not _everyone_ thought that about you. After all, I only found out about dragons, phoenixes, and trolls when I was eleven years old; it was quite a shock considering I had been told my entire life that they were complete fantasy. I bet any Muggleborn or -raised would be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Well, the majority of them, anyway," he added, thinking of Hermione's instant and condescending dismissal upon meeting her for the first time. "You're absolutely right about Clyde shutting up the nay-sayers, too. It's hard to call something imaginary when it's sitting there in front of you.

"Admittedly, Neville, I would be lying if I said I expect us to see Nargles around here, if for no other reason than the sheer number of people who have spent time in this area over the centuries, but the _finding_ isn't really the most important part, I don't think. The _company_ is. Even when we come back empty-handed, we will still have had an enjoyable afternoon together."

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

Neville nodded seriously as he pondered what they had said, and other Gryffindors who had been eavesdropping seemed to share his newfound understanding. Harry appreciated this thoughtfulness; it was despicable how Luna had been isolated and viciously mocked for four years simply because she kept an open mind and looked at the world from a different angle than the average individual. He had not been lying about the hunts, either; every year prior to Voldemort's second resurrection, partly in memory of her father, the amateur cryptomagizoologist had dragged him and Hermione off on a tour of some empty part of Europe for a week or two to piddle around and keep an eye out for unusual creatures. She may have billed it as an expedition, but it was more of a vacation than anything else.

He absolutely adored those trips. For a brief time, he was free from the unreasonable, ultimately unfulfillable expectations the British placed on him as their precious _'Man-Who-Won'_ and was just a no-name nobody trailing after two pretty birds. It was a chance to relax, have a little fun, and drive their mutual lover spare as she tried her best to pretend she wasn't enjoying the time off from her Healing apprenticeship just as much as they were.

_Maybe the three of us and Xeno can all go on another one next summer. Voldemort and Dumbledore will both be gone, the Pureblood supremacists will be defanged, and we'll have plenty of money to throw away. It will just be a matter of stealing Hermione away from her parents, though there is no reason they can't come along as well._ He winced briefly as just such a reason crossed his mind. _Then again, do I really want all three of my, for all intents and purposes, __**in-laws**__ hanging around at the same time, especially since I doubt we're going to be willing to pretend we aren't shagging each other silly every night?_

_No. Definitely not._

"Ugh, why am I not surprised?" Hermione balled the _Prophet_ up and tossed it away in disgust. "The editors wrote an opinion piece detailing our _dear_ High Inquisitor's voting record in the Wizengamot. Any ideas what they were saying?"

He sighed. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it was full of praise for her work isolating and degrading the werewolves, centaurs, merpeople, Muggleborns, so-called 'half-breeds', and anyone else who can't trace their magical ancestry back _ad nauseam_."

"Got it in one."

"You know, I see a serious flaw in her supporting that particular philosophy," Luna commented idly. "After all, they might not be magical, but I'm pretty sure having a toad as a parent makes her a half-breed, too. It would have to be an exceptionally large toad, of course, and the actual mechanics would get rather strange depending on exactly _which_ parent said amphibian was —"

"Luna, please stop. I really did not need or want those mental images." He pushed his plate away, all appetite gone. A quick glance at the staff table was enough for him to see the wide grin on Umbridge's face. _So she's that happy about her new position? Well, that just won't do. She enjoys having power, but even more than that, she essentially feeds on the fear others feel for her as the result of that power. If she weren't so short, fat, and pink, I'd think she was a Dementor. I wonder, though; what would happen if someone stopped that fear before it could really take root? If every time people looked at her, they remembered something happy or even funny?_

A smile appeared as a plan sprouted in his mind. It would take a little bit of time to look things up, but with morning classes cancelled…

"Regardless of potential hypocrisy, it infuriates me that the main news source for this country is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the cesspool of bigotry and corruption that calls itself our government. If Magical Britain is ever to drag itself out of the Dark Ages, an independent and factual press has to be one of the biggest priorities."

Luna bristled at her girlfriend's declaration and reflexively defended her only living parent. "Hermione! I'll have you know that the _Quibbler_ has _always_ considered truthful reporting to be one of our most important duties to our readers."

"Sorry, sorry," Hermione sighed. "You know I didn't mean it like that. I suppose I should have said an independent, factual, and _widely read_ press. Like it or not, your father's paper _is_ a bit of a niche publication."

"Well, yes, you're right about that. Honesty should not be limited to magizoology."

What Hermione left unsaid, and what only two others at the table knew, was the real reason she took the _Daily Prophet's_ incendiary comments personally. When the story of his relationship with the two girls was leaked to the masses by a spurned Ginny Weasley, the resulting firestorm raged for weeks, fueled primarily with the immature jealousy of his fangirl hordes that the women decorating his arms weren't _them_ as well as the common magical's obsession for news about their hyphenated hero. Luna had weathered it with a grin and a dismissive shrug; after almost a decade of her family's name being dragged through the mud by the whole country, being called a _'vapid invalid who should be sent to St. Mungo's permanently'_ was nothing to her.

As bad as the blonde had it, the attacks on the brunette were even worse. It seemed that not a day went by without some comment or other, both in articles and letters to the editors, to the effect of how an _'uncivilized, stupid, gold-digging Mudblood whore'_ could not be allowed to continue thinking she was good enough for the darling of Wizarding Britain. New rumors detailing her presumed use of love potions, Imperius Curse, and good old-fashioned blackmail to keep him by her side sprang up hourly. The Aurors had even taken those claims seriously and once came to Grimmauld Place to detain her while they investigated, though that plan was scuppered shortly afterwards, mostly due to him taking offense, stunning them all, throwing them through the Floo back to the Ministry Atrium, and then spending the next two hours screaming at Kingsley Shacklebolt.

He had been a _little_ upset.

For all that it got the DMLE off their backs, nothing else came of the impromptu meeting; the Minister had apologized but also admitted that there was little anyone could do. Apparently, the reason the _Prophet_ got away with their continuous libel is that there were no laws to prohibit it, and a charge of defamation of character only applied when an individual was 'falsely' accused of a crime. That certainly explained why they had been fined so harshly after Lord Greengrass bribed the Wizengamot to drop the attempted murder charges against Daphne. So long as the newspaper merely _implied_ that Hermione had broken the law rather than outright _stated_ it, they were not actually accusing her, hence why Skeeter had gotten away with all her muckraking.

The more Magical Britain's laws were looked at anyone by with a modicum of logic, the less sense they made.

Hermione nodded. "I think I'll go ahead and get some work done since we have the morning off. Feel free to join me in the library later if you want."

"Actually, Hermione," Neville began cautiously, and she turned to look at him squarely. "I'm having a little trouble with the essay Flitwick set out for us. Would you be all right with helping me out a little?"

She blinked in surprise before nodding. "Sure, I don't mind a bit." The two departed, leaving Harry and a pensive Luna to themselves.

"What's wrong, love?"

"Hermione's birthday is coming up next Tuesday," the blonde replied. At his confused look, she explained, "I really shouldn't have gone off on her like that; we both knew what she meant. I have an idea for a good present for her, but I'll need help setting it up."

Harry quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? Do tell." She slid over and whispered her plan into his ear; the more he heard, the wider his eyes grew. By the time she pulled back, there was only one answer he could possibly give.

"Count me in."

* * *

His plan for bringing Umbridge down a few pegs took a little longer than he had anticipated, but Harry was finally ready as he walked calmly to the staff table, the Cloak of Invisibility an unnecessary precaution in the empty Great Hall. _And all it took was skipping lunch and most of Divination. I knew there was a reason I didn't drop that class last week_. Stopping in front of the staff table, specifically her regular chair, his wand waved in a quick dance. "_Adnecto finite impedimenta_," he murmured. Just enough magic flowed into his charm for it to activate once; any more and he would have to worry about the spell being traced back to him. With this little energy, however, the charm would dissipate after a single use, leaving no signature.

With the trap set, he quickly retreated. He had just under fifteen minutes to get to the Toad's class, and it would not do to be late.

* * *

_It's amazing what charms can do_, he thought idly to himself as he watched Umbridge stomp into the Great Hall midway through the dinner hour. _For instance, straight transfiguration is all well and good, but what if I don't plan for the spell to activate right when I cast it? What if I want to set a delay of some kind? People like Dowager Longbottom can call it a _'soft option'_ all they want, but I maintain that Charms is the basis of all wandwork._

The woman had been exceedingly smug that afternoon, even going to far as to needle him persistently in hopes of landing him in detention. That she was trying so hard told him that she had yet to discover that her blood quills had been destroyed, but he had to wonder if her behavior meant she had worked out how to circumvent the compulsion he placed on her during the Sorting Feast. Ignoring her taunts, he instead took advantage of an opportunity she presented and vanished an innocuous pebble into the collar of one of her tiny boots. With how fat her legs were, there was little chance it could slip further down and make itself noticeable under her foot.

Turning her nose up at Flitwick's greeting, she sat in her chair and pulled herself closer to the table. That brought her in range of the spell he had cast a few hours earlier, and he had to smother a grin as the charms on the pebble activated.

A loud pop drew everyone's attention. Umbridge clutched her clothing in distress; what had been a skirt and cardigan was now a fluorescent pink cassock robe. Having visualized it in detail while casting the transfiguration, he knew it wrapped tightly about her like a leotard and could not be removed. Her hairstyle was also altered and now lay flat on her head with a wide circle centered on her crown being cut out to make it reminiscent of a monk's tonsure. The best part, however, was that her feet were bare, locking the magic in place as the pebble was no longer physically present but was instead tied up in the transformation just as her shoes were.

"Who did this?!" she screamed, but her voice was not her own. Instead, a deep baritone issued from her mouth. Unable to stand the pressure any longer, the damn burst, and the students practically fell over themselves laughing. He, too, gave into his chuckles. Hermione and Luna, while also enjoying the show, squeezed his hands and gave him a _look_. He had not informed them of his plan, but obviously they had worked out who was responsible.

Seeing that no one was willing to turn themselves in, Umbridge turned to the quarter-goblin she had just snubbed. "Undo this!"

Flitwick's shoulders shook for a few moments before he lowered his hand from his mouth. "Why haven't you gotten rid of it yourself?" he asked innocently.

"It is in my handbag, which is also caught in this getup!"

Harry's eyes widened, and his laughter increased. _Oh Merlin, I got her wand, too? That's even better!_

"I suppose I can help," the Charms professor reluctantly agreed. "_Finite_." The outfit shifted back to her regular outfit for an instant before returning to its transfigured state. He frowned. "_Finite incantatem_." Again the robe flickered, and Flitwick lowered his wand. "Well now, a self-renewing transfiguration? How clever. Stand."

_Don't waste your time, Flitwick. No matter what you do to get her out of that ensemble — dispelling, cutting, even vanishing — the spells on the pebble will constantly renew it. She's going to be stuck like that for the next three days._

The tiny man had apparently already figured that out, for when Umbridge shuffled awkwardly out of the way, he aimed his wand at her chair. "_Magicus revelio._" There was no effect from his spell, and the same proved true of her silverware, plate, goblet, and the table itself. That he did not do the same to the Toad's outfit did not surprise Harry; transfigurations did not 'radiate' magic outwards like charmed artifacts did, instead focusing all their power inwards to maintain the difference between an altered object's appearance and its essence. He fruitlessly tried dispelling the transformation again. "Professor Umbridge, did you receive anything from a student today? Something small or innocent, perhaps? Maybe something you confiscated?"

"I most certainly did not!"

"Then I am at a loss to explain how it happened. It is a shame that transfigurations don't allow for identifying magical signatures, but this is certainly seventh-year work." Flitwick grinned and turned to the Gryffindor table. "Oh, Misters Weasley!"

The jaws of the incorrigible pranksters dropped before they shouted in unison, "It wasn't us!"

"Of course it wasn't. Come with me, boys." The two teachers marched the terrible twosome out of the Hall to much whispering and giggling from the rest of the student body.

_Should I feel sorry for letting them take the blame for this?_, Harry wondered for a moment before the variety of jokes the pair had played ran through his mind. _Nah._

"How wonderful, dinner and a show!" Luna remarked. She pushed her empty plate away and continued, "Well, I'm full. Harry, would you mind accompanying me to the library?"

"Me, too," Hermione agreed.

Harry shrugged and stood. After making their way to an empty room, the same one he and Hermione had been in immediately following — or perhaps proceeding, he wasn't quite sure — his first prank on the Toad, the brunette cast a bevy of privacy spells on the doorway. "That was fantastic, Harry. Now how in the world did you do it?"

He preened for a moment. "It wasn't too hard, actually. While the two of you were in the the library and the classroom Luna's been using to work on our disguises, _I_ was in the Room of Requirement looking through some books on Transfiguration and Charms for the spells I needed. Of course, I wound up having to tweak both the depilatory charm and the clothes-to-robe transfiguration, but as you saw, they worked out just fine. After that, it was a simple matter of linking them to a mounting charm and putting them on a little pebble."

The girls nodded. Spells generally worked immediately on the item they were cast upon, which was all well and good much of the time, but if that object was just supposed to be the medium through which a spell was relayed, things became a little more difficult. That was what the mounting charm was made for; once appended to another spell and cast, it turned whatever it was applied to into, essentially, a temporary secondary focus.

In this case, the pebble.

"That makes sense," Hermione said after a moment. "I suppose you put it on her chair. But then how would it keep going after she stood up?"

"The pebble wasn't on her chair, but in her shoe. I slipped it to her during class."

"Then why didn't it work until now?"

Luna's eyes lit up. "Wait a minute, you were telling me about an article you read in _Challenges in Charming_ this summer. A new use for the impediment jinx?"

He smiled; _Impedimenta_ was the most important part of his trick. "That's right, I'm glad you remembered. During an amateur duel in Russia, one of the competitors misaimed his jinx and hit the scoreboard. The officials got it working again, but there was a Charms Master in attendance who became curious and tried it out on several charmed objects when he returned home. It turns out that much like the delay charm, it stops other spells from functioning without completely removing them. With that in mind, I used the jinx on the pebble once I had the charms I wanted on it so that they wouldn't immediately activate. After that, all I had to do was _Adnecto_ the floor in front of Umbridge's chair with a _Finite_ specific for the impediment jinx and then vanish the rock into one of her shoes. Her foot comes close to that patch of the floor, the finishing charm ends the jinx, and voila, she's a monk."

"And that's probably the part I understand least," Hermione commented. "Why did you choose that costume?"

"If she's going to start an Inquisition, she should at least look the part."

Both girls rolled their eyes, and Harry would forever deny that he pouted. _No one appreciates my jokes anymore. Where's Sirius when you need the fleabag?_

"Sure, sure." The brunette strode over to the door and dispelled the security charms. She opened it only to come face-to-face with a long white beard. "Headmaster. Is there something we can help you with?"

Dumbledore just looked at her seriously, an unusual expression for him. "I certainly hope so. Harry, would you mind coming with me, please? We need to have a small talk."

"I suppose not. Either of you want to join us?" he asked his lovers.

"This really needs to be a private conversation, my boy."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Professor, the last time we had a _'private conversation'_, I wound up having to declare _blood feud_ and would have been _killed_ if not for an inherited life debt and my own reflexes. Forgive me if I feel the need for someone to watch my back."

"Mione, you got to go with him last time," Luna stated, coming up and wrapping her arms around one of his own, "so I get tonight's date in the Headmaster's office. You don't mind, do you?"

"That's fine. I can give it a miss once in a while," Hermione answered lightly.

"Well, now that _that's_ settled," Harry said, motioning to the hallway, "shall we?"

* * *

Once in his office proper, Dumbledore waved them to the chairs in front of his desk. While Harry took one, Luna did not, instead choosing to situate herself on his lap and lean backwards into his chest. He was not sure which part caused the largest part of Dumbledore's distress: the blunt claim by someone the old man had no influence over, his arms wrapping around her waist too naturally for someone who was abused for his entire life, or their gazes being directed at the chin hidden behind the excessive beard rather than his eyes to prevent him from finding a hint of their thoughts.

The three of them sat in silence for a full minute before Dumbledore finally prompted, "Is there anything either of you would like to tell me?"

"I have something, if you don't mind," Luna began. At the headmaster's nod, she said, "I've always heard that you offer lemon drops to people who come to your office, and yet I am still without candy of any kind. I must profess myself disappointed."

Dumbledore was dumbfounded for a moment, but he waved a hand at the dish on his desk. "I do apologize, Miss Lovegood. Would you care for one?"

"No, thank you, but it is only polite to ask," she chirped.

"I… see. Harry, my boy, I just came back from St. Mungo's, and I'm afraid I have some bad news. Professor Snape has accused _you_ of being the one who attacked him."

"Why am I not surprised?" he replied with a shake of his head. _Not surprised that this is still your strategy even when you should have realized by now that it's __**never going to work**__, that is._ "And just what evidence has Snape offered to support his claims, or is this another case of _'He's a Potter, it must be __**his**__ fault!'_? Because honestly, I'm getting more than a little tired of being constantly picked on by someone who is too immature to let go of a twenty-something-year-old grudge."

"Harry, I assure you that Professor Snape would never make such a serious accusation without proof."

He scoffed. "Fine then, let's call the DMLE in and have them sort this whole thing out."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible." Dumbledore let out a grandfatherly sigh. "Professor Snape died of his injuries a few hours ago."

_Wow, old man, you're really laying this on thick._ "Now that's just a damn shame. And with him soon to be six feet under, he can't testify on what he claimed he saw. Oh well, no skin off my nose. Was that everything you wished to discuss, sir?"

"Do you feel no regret for this man's death?!" the headmaster thundered.

He hummed for a moment, not frightened in the slightest by Dumbledore's 'outburst'. Impulsive actions were out of character for the man, making this seem contrived. _Unless he actually expects me to worry about losing his approval enough to confess, or at least take the blame for it. After all, I very well might have my first time through this._ "Nope, not really. I have no love for Snape; in fact, all I feel for him is a great deal of enmity. This should not be such a big surprise to you. That he finally brassed off someone who was willing and able to beat him to death is no concern of mine. Hell, I'm tempted to search for who offed him myself so I can send them a basket of Honeydukes candies or something."

"This lack of remorse is not helping your case, Mister Potter."

"Wow. _'Mister Potter'_, really? I think that's the first time you've addressed me like that the entire time I've been here." He rolled his eyes. "Unfortunately, your premise was flawed from the onset. If a lack of remorse is proof that I killed the bastard, then three quarters of the school implicated themselves this morning by _celebrating_ when you announced the attack. Not to mention, without Snape's 'testimony', there is no case to begin with. Second-hand stories don't hold much legal weight in our world, no matter how well they can raise up and lay low heroes in the public's eye."

His indignation card played and trumped, Dumbledore switched tactics. "If you had no hand in this attack, you would surely not mind telling me what were you doing last night after curfew."

_He doesn't even know __**when**__ Snape kicked the bucket? That's just pitiful. What's even worse is that the bat's dead and yet Dumbledore is __**still**__ taking his side over mine._ He grinned as a throwaway comment from their last meeting came to mind. "Wanking."

"Can anyone…" The headmaster trailed off, looking confused, embarrassed, and totally unprepared for this shift in the conversation. _Mission accomplished._ "I'm sorry, what?"

"Wanking," Harry repeated slowly. "I'm a fifteen year old boy with two sexy girlfriends. I think I'm entitled to toss one off once in a while." Luna nodded and wiggled in his lap, much to Little Harry's delight. He poked her belly to make her stop before she could distract him _too_ much. "Sorry, sexy and _mean_ girlfriends. I had a few charms up, so no one can verify that directly, but I was certainly in my dorm. I would have gone up to do that tonight if you hadn't interrupted our private time."

"About that… just why were the three of you in that classroom when I came over in the first place?" Dumbledore asked cautiously, almost as if he was afraid of the answer.

Luna, sensing weakness, refused to give him any quarter. "When was the last time you were in a broom closet? Actually, don't answer that; for the sake of my sanity, I'm just going to assume the answer is _'not since I was a lad'_. Well, let me tell you, those things are _cramped_, and that's with just _two_ people inside. All three of us are far too much for them, so we've been using empty rooms for our fun." She pursed her lips before adding, "In fact, we'll probably keep doing that from now even when it's only two of us. The closets just don't have enough space to maneuver in, and tripping over robes and knickers is a brutal mood-killer."

"Now Luna, there's no need to titillate him so. Headmaster, if those are all your questions that do not pertain to our romantic escapades, we will take our leave." The two stood and made for the door, leaving the old man's face as white as his hair. "I'll be more than willing to resume this discussion about Snape's death if you are able to provide actual proof that I was involved. Until then, my answer remains the same: I had nothing to do with it."

They were at the foot of the stairs when Luna finally remarked, "That was fun. What do you want to wager that Hermione's already waiting for us in the Room of Requirement?"

"Please, love, do you take me for a fool? That's a sucker bet."

* * *

Draco could not eat breakfast the following morning, too busy glaring at the trash who had taken away his respected — not beloved; sappy emotions like _love_ were for blood-traitors and Mudbloods — godfather. Oh, Dumbledore hadn't said who was responsible, but everyone who mattered knew the old man would never let his precious Golden Boy get what was coming to him. That scarhead Potter _had_ to have had a hand in killing Severus.

_He probably snuck up on Severus and cursed him in the back like the coward he is_, he thought. A Slytherin would never do something like that; he would curse his victim in the back and _then_ make it look like there was never an attack to begin with. Much like he was going to do to Potter.

Well, it was high time Potter learned that Dumbledore couldn't protect him from everything. He would pay for Severus's death! It wouldn't be quick, either. Potter would be begging for forgiveness by the time he was through, but Draco would refuse to give it.

He slouched in his seat at the Slytherin table and began to plot. This would take cunning. It would take skill. It would take stealth. It would take a wizard of pure blood, backed by a pair of thugs to do the dirty work.

Too bad for Potter, the Prince of Slytherin house had all of those.

* * *

**Dawson:** Mostly the plunder is just gold or things the trio are pawning off, but there may be a few useful items here or there.

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** Snape was one of those people who wanted money really just to have it as a reminder of how far he had risen from a poor childhood.

**jadesabrexiv:** Now why would I reveal anything about future plot points? You'll just have to wait and see if Sluggy shows up.

**cross-over-lover232:** We never see much of Narcissa, full stop. Familial love _does not_ mean that someone is a good person. Her willingness to lie about Harry's death to save her son only demonstrates that she cares more about Draco than the Pureblood cause, not that she is "trapped in a marriage" through Lucius to said cause. She is one of the plethora of HP characters who can be painted however you wish; while she is a protagonist in _Princess of the Blacks_, here she is an antagonist who almost certainly will not survive the end of the story.

**Faraway-R:** Just because I don't show it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Harry telling the girls about the people they kill becoming ghosts would have been a one, maybe two paragraph scene that I thought was perfectly fine with being only implied.

**Silently Watches out.**


	29. The Grass isn't Always Greener

**Disclaimer:** Was Draco Malfoy actually allowed to breed? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 29  
****The Grass isn't Always Greener**

"Can we take these things off _now_?"

"Sorry, Harry. Just a little further."

The raven-haired teen sighed as he once again wished the blindfold wrapped around his head would spontaneously vanish itself; Luna was enjoying this far too much. It was finally Saturday, and that meant it was time to take on their first 'live' heist. All that was certain was that robbing the Greengrasses blind was going to be much, much different from picking through the empty houses of dead or imprisoned Death Eaters.

His stomach was fluttering in a way it hadn't since the morning before his first-ever Quidditch match.

Beside him, Hermione sighed. "Couldn't you have waited to put these on us until we were closer to the room you've been using?"

"Oh, poor, silly Mione." The tugging on their hands disappeared, indicating that Luna had stopped in her tracks. "Wherever would be the fun in that?"

"You've been dragging us since we left the Room! That is on the _seventh_ floor; we're on, what, the third now?"

"First, actually. And we're here!" Luna quickly added at Hermione's growl. The hands wrapped around their own were suddenly gone, and a squeak signaled a door opening. "Now, walk forwards."

One, two, thr— and a sudden impact with something solid caused him to fall hard to the floor. The consequent giggling did not make him feel any better.

"No, Harry, that's a _wall_. Get up, take a big step to your left, and try again."

A second attempt had him inside the room, though that had not stopped Luna's laughter. "Okay, you two can take off the blindfolds."

He did so with no small amount of relief and blinked in surprise at the outfits clothing three manikins labeled with their names. These were not the robes he had been half-expecting. Instead, the Ravenclaw's creations looked very much like catsuits, leaving only the manikins' heads and hands uncovered by the dark-dyed…

"Leather?" he asked in surprise. "Not that I'm saying I won't enjoy watching you two girls move around in these, but I thought we had decided to wear outfits made from Acromantula silk for their magical resistance."

"We _did_, but I realized when I started designing them that silk is just a _bad_ material for protective garb, no matter how resistant it is. The original plan would have dampened the effects of curses, certainly, but the first banished object to hit it would have torn it to shreds, and then we'd be screwed. Leather, on the other hand, is lightweight, provides decent protection from moderate physical blows, and can be replaced at a much lower cost than the silk lining it. It's also easy to charm for temperature regulation to keep us cool when we're inside and warm when we're outside breaking wards in the _middle of winter_. It was this or we take a break from our heists for a few months; I don't know about the two of you, but I'm not going to stand around in knee-deep snow and freeze my baps off."

He stepped closer to better examine the disguises. Pouched belts wrapped around their waists, and a quick check involving opening one of them and sticking his entire arm down it proved that they were charmed with space-extension like the sacks the trio had been using before now. Hermione had approached with him, but she was fingering the hood attached to her suit. "Preventing anyone from seeing what our hair looks like is a good idea, but how do we keep them from remembering our faces and body shapes? We don't look quite like adults just yet, and tipping the DMLE off that the Hooded Foxes are students would make all this a moot point."

"Excellent points," Luna replied, picking up a small bag from behind an overturned table. "If I may address the second first, I spent some of my downtime in Siberia tinkering around with the notice-me-not charm. While it would keep anyone from spotting us on the outset, I quickly realized that not only would it make it difficult to find each other, but casting it on ourselves and then making a big enough disturbance to attract people's attention would cause them to look hard enough that they would eventually see through it. However, if they can see us just fine, they'll be too busy with the thought that they're being robbed and their attempts to catch us to pay too much attention to our figures. When they try to describe us to the Ministry investigators, their minds will fill in the details with their preconceived notions, and who honestly expects three teenagers to be master thieves? Originally, I considered that we might wear cloaks, but those have a bad habit of getting in the way at the worst possible time. All that said, I'd much rather that we not put my theory to the test.

"The _'hiding our faces'_ problem was actually easier to take care of, and a whole lot more fun as well." She reached into the bag and pulled out a dark red mask that was shaped like a fox head and was large enough to cover the entire face. Passing it to Hermione, she explained, "They have sticking charms to attach them to your skin and anti-summoning charms to keep people from magicking them off. That's not the best part, though. Remember when I said I wanted to try something my spell-crafting Master had mentioned? Well, at one time he lectured about how working through our calculations may lead us to unusual spells that have nothing to do with the problem we're trying to solve. He gave a couple of examples, but the one that really stuck with me was a self-enchanting spell."

The brunette pulled her eyes from their examination of the mask. "I'm sorry, did you just say _self-enchanting_? How in Merlin's name does _that_ work?"

"The spell gives the material it is cast on a… _memory_, for lack of a better word, for other charms laid on it. The more often you use one particular spell, the better it will 'stick', until that magic is so familiar that it eventually binds with a containment rune cluster etched on the object to turn it into a quick-and-dirty enchantment." She smiled at their shocked expressions. "Wicked, right? I put eight of those clusters on the masks, though I already filled three up with that enchantment and the other two I mentioned, so it can learn five more. That should be enough to let us customize them to our hearts' content, not to mention make them much more valuable in the field. I thought about doing the same to our outfits, but I was worried that too many spells would overwhelm the Acromantula silk and take away that level of protection."

"How do we keep track of whose mask is whose?" Harry asked. His younger lover was spot on in how useful these would be, and he already had a good idea of his first two enchantments: the passive magesight he normally put on his glasses and a charm to render his voice unrecognizable. Perhaps a supersensory charm would make a good third, though the side-effects from using that spell for long periods left him cautious. Constantly mixing the masks would defeat the purpose and was therefore something he wanted to avoid.

Luna reached into her bag again and pulled out two other masks; these, however, were blue and yellow. "Three thieves, three masks, three colors. I'm going to let the two of you fight over the Gryffindor masks while I claim the blue one. This also means we won't have to ruin our disguises by calling each other by our real names, instead we just use our colors."

"You really outdid yourself, dear," Hermione said as she wrapped the girl in a loose hug. "We need to be moving soon, though. Dobby's notes said both Greengrass parents were going to be out of the house from ten to one today, and it's already half past nine. Show us how to put these disguises and masks on so we can get to work."

With a nod, she put the masks in her hands on a nearby desk. "It's simple enough. Step one: strip." She flushed at their questioning looks. "When I started working on these, I was going by the measurements I took from pensieve memories of us naked so they wouldn't be too loose. Instead, I think I made them a _little_ on the tight side. We might have some trouble getting them on and off at first, but it's nothing a quick lubricating charm can't fix."

* * *

_She wasn't kidding about how tight this outfit is_, Harry reflected as he dampened the open ward struggling valiantly to alert the homeowners to the presence of intruders on their property. _If I didn't know better, I'd think she __**painted**__ it on me. That's not necessarily a negative, though; this way, there's no material billowing out to catch on things, and the thin gloves sticking to us like a second skin means they don't diminish our dexterity. It could definitely be worse._

_I'm just glad she made the crotch area looser than the rest. This would be torture otherwise._

"And down," said blonde sighed in relief, and this time he managed to suppress the urge to glance over at the strange voice. "Double-check me if you would, Yellow."

Hermione nodded, her wandtip slipped inside her hood. "I see the same. Red, I'm going to need you to set up the wardtap. This next one's going to be interesting."

"What is it?"

"I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I _think_ it prevents anyone with 'impure' blood from passing through it."

He stopped as he was about to push the tap into the ground and turned his head towards her. "Seriously? Didn't you say that your attending Healer proved to all of you early on in your studies that there was no magical difference in blood, no matter what your social status? I'd think that would prevent this ward from working."

"So would I, but I'd also rather not test that theory and be proven wrong, especially since it's been stressed and rigged to a dark ward that would flay all our skin off."

He sighed and proceeded with her directions. Only the Potter family had figured out a means of linking open and closed wards so the defenses would activate under specific circumstances, but that had not stopped others from trying to duplicate the feat. Ward stressing was one common — if perilous — method that involved setting up two closed wards so that a prohibitory ward inhibited a second, generally lethal defense. The first barrier was then weakened by careful defacement of the relevant runes on the wardstone. This meant that the ward could no longer fulfill its intended purpose, but would instead collapse when its internal condition, such as the absence of halfbloods and Muggleborns, was violated, which in turn would allow the following ward to activate and harm the transgressors.

For the trio, however, this was little more troublesome than if the skin-melting ward had been left on its own. Rigging the shields like the Greengrasses had tied them together so closely that draining one would simultaneously power down the second. Harry shoved the tap and their static amplifier into the ground where his own magesight showed the barriers ending. A muttered "_Epoto_" soon had the magic swirling back into the earth.

Several minutes passed in silence, though Harry had to restart the draining process a few times when the ward developed visible cracks in its pink surface. Finally, Hermione waved him to stop. "That's as far as we can safely take it, I think; I'd rather not keep going and risk that ward collapsing with us next to it. Could one of you make a thick wall we can bunker down behind?" She began flicking her wand in sharp, harsh movements, all the while stepping backwards until she circled around the stone fortification the other two had conjured and reinforced. With a long stroke downwards like dropping a hammer on top of the house, she leveled her wand and cried, "_Confringissimo_!"

She dropped to the dirt the instant the deep yellow spell left her wand, and Harry and Luna were a scant moment behind her. They may not have been able to see what she had done, but they certainly _heard_ it; loud groans and bangs erupted from the ward until a flash of light informed them that it was down.

"Merlin's soggy socks! What was _that_?!"

Hermione panted for a bit before answering the blonde. "Chain blasting curse. I read about it in a book on siege magic you stole from the Lestranges. It took a bit more effort than I expected."

"Next time, _please_ don't try out a new spell like that without giving us a heads-up beforehand," Luna politely demanded. She popped her head over the now-crumbling top of the barricade and examined the defenses with active magesight. "Well, no matter how startling it was, it certainly worked. Go ahead and rest. There's a portkey ward and maybe one more behind that. Red, will you stick around with her?"

"Not a problem, Blue."

"I _told_ you, it's _Ultramarine_. What is it with boys not knowing their colors?" Shaking her head, the youngest of the three drew a set of wardpicks from one of her pouches and walked towards the house.

He, too, could use a break to catch his breath; the wardtap was a hungry beast, and the magic sucked from the wards was not enough to sate it. _From now on, we need to carry something sugary with us for quick boosts._ A few seconds later, Luna returned and dropped between them. "Animagus-detecting ward," she explained, and he nodded wearily. This open ward would be quick to get rid of, but it still meant draping a net on top of it to keep it quiet while they neutralized it.

Fifteen minutes later, they were standing safely in front of the entrance to the Greengrasses' mansion. This family clearly took their security seriously, as the door was charmed as much as the wood could handle so as to resist most of the simpler ways of demolishing it. Unfortunately for them, and for reasons none of the trio could fathom, they had forgotten to protect if from the simple unlocking charm taught to first-years in Hogwarts. With a group nod, they split up to begin their ransacking.

Harry had drawn the ground story when they plucked their floors from a hat, and so he started in the formal dining room. He lifted a fork from the table and tapped it with his wand. "_Materia revelio_." He smiled behind his mask at the word displayed in smoke; they had found that it was less irritating and more profitable simply to melt down anything gold and silver and then sell the metal than to argue with pawnshop owners that something, such as a sterling silver utensil set, was the real McCoy and not a cheap knock-off. A quick gesture had all of the precious metal as well as the plates and crystal goblets summoned into a pouch, and the twenty-place table as well as the chairs and surrounding cabinets soon found themselves shrunken and stored in their new, temporary homes within another. There were no portraits in here, but a firebird volley hex quickly immolated those in the corridor to the kitchen.

Working his way through the house, he eventually entered the Lord Greengrass's study. He pulled drawers out of the rolltop desk the man owned and rifled through all his papers, but other than a well-worn signet ring, he did not find anything with immediate monetary value, especially not the vault key he had been searching for. "Blue, Yellow, their Gringotts key is still in the wind. They might have taken it with them, but keep an eye out for it anyway."

"_Understood,"_ they both replied, their distorted voices becoming more recognizable the more they spoke.

His exploration led him next door to a public sitting room; at least, that was what it felt like thanks to the uncomfortable-looking furniture and generally impersonal atmosphere. He glanced about the room, and his curiosity was piqued by the lone photograph on the mantel of the fireplace. Stepping closer to inspect it more closely, he finally noticed what had seemed so strange after seeing so many Pureblood family photos. Of the four people it depicted, he recognized the patriarch and David on sight, and he guessed that the stern woman behind the boy was the lady of the house. The final member, however, was a girl who was at most in her early teens. Where her family was sitting so stiffly that Harry would have been unsure if this image was animated at all were it not for the film of sepia magic covering the photo, she constantly fidgeted, rolling her eyes when the hand her father was resting on her shoulder tightened in subtle admonishment. As if she could notice him looking at her, the picture girl met his eyes and smiled faintly before the expression was wiped away by another rebuke.

This was the first sign of honest happiness he had observed in a proudly Pureblood house since the trio had started their raids, and to see her being chastised for daring to show it lit a fire in his belly. It reminded him far too much of how the Dursleys had tried to remake him into a subservient automaton during the ten years he had spent in their 'care'.

"_Here you are, you sneaky little bugger! This is Ultramarine; I just found the vault key."_

His mouth moved almost before he realized he was speaking. "Do either of you remember anything about a younger daughter?"

"_Vaguely,"_ Hermione answered after a moment. _"I think her name was Astoria? All I know for sure is that when the Slytherins cut and ran before the Battle of Hogwarts, she hid until the fight started and joined in. The only reason I remember her at all is that I was shocked to find the body of a fifth-year in green trim lying next to Colin's. Why do you ask?"_

"Because I'm looking at a photo of her right now, and I'm not sure she deserves pauperdom even though the rest of her family does." Wizarding photographs captured not just a person's image, but also a shadow of their personality. Try as he might, he could not prevent this cheerful child from tugging on his heartstrings. "Was she a bully like her older sibling?"

Daphne had spent all her time in public orbiting Parkinson, and though David did not, he _was_ part of Theodore Nott's crew alongside Blaise Zabini. The Nott scion might not have ever gone out of his way to antagonize Harry the way Malfoy did, but he took just as much enjoyment out of harassing Muggleborns. If she were a devotee to the Pureblood cause like the elder Greengrass who had simply recognized that Voldemort was a madman, he would have no problem in continuing the heist as planned. On the other hand, if she were not…

"_Not to my knowledge,"_ Luna replied. _"I can't tell you for __**sure**__ that she wasn't, but the other Slytherin girls in her year didn't mind causing me trouble, regardless that I was a year above them, so I kept an eye out. I never saw her with them, and I think I've seen even less of her in this timeline."_

Harry sighed; so much for the easy solution. The question now became what should they do about it? Leaving the Greengrasses their cash would allow for her continued care, but that also left resources to one of Death Eaters' biggest backers. Stealing all their wealth would silence this voice of the Pureblood movement, but it would do so at Astoria's expense.

Was the sadness of one little girl worth the Greater Good?

He returned to the study and rummaged around until he located a ledger. Flipping rapidly through the pages, he glanced at the current balance. "They have thirty-five thousand galleons in liquid assets as of a week ago. Appraising our goods for market value rather than what we will receive from pawn shops, do either of you predict them having the money to throw around and cause trouble after replacing their belongings?"

"_I doubt it,"_ Luna answered. _"Unless they're okay with living with much less palatial decorations than they have right now, their account won't pay for all this. Even shopping secondhand might not stretch it far enough to replace everything immediately."_

With a sigh, he closed the account book. "Then we won't be visiting Gringotts after this. I want to leave them a message, anyway." He glanced at the clock sitting on one of the desk's shelves before bagging it. "It's eleven-thirty. Let's wrap this up so we can get back before lunch."

"_That hungry, are you?"_

"No, Yellow, just want to make sure we have at least a weak alibi."

They met in the front foyer, and Luna conjured their mark before handing him the key. He touched it against the wall and glued it there with a sticking charm. Carefully writing his message with flame in the air in a different handwriting than his usual scrawl, he pushed the words into the wall below the key and let them burn for a moment. "There, that should do it. Do you think they'll listen?"

Hermione shrugged. "Considering their house is practically empty? They would be stupid not to. I went back to the girl's room to leave her her diary, gemstone collection, autographed Appleby Arrows poster, anything that looked like it held personal value, but she's still missing a lot."

"You did your best, though," Luna said, wrapping her arms around their shoulders. "We came to rob them, and we did. That we moderated our actions so she suffers less is a good thing. Who knows? Maybe she'll look back on this day and remember that it was when her family changed their ways and her whole life turned around."

"I'll settle for not making an enemy out of her," Harry commented softly.

* * *

As the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones was rarely called to the scene of a crime. Along with Dementors Kissing the Potter boy's Muggle relatives — as he had told her rather emphatically at the time that they were _not_ his family — this made twice in as many months, much more than normal. Getting out of the office and keeping her investigative skills polished almost made up for the wagonload of parchmentwork that would inevitably follow.

She noticed the crimson cloaks and strode towards her Aurors. "Shacklebolt, Tonks. Report."

"Madam Bones," greeted the large Africa-born wizard. "We received a floo call from Lord Cyrus Greengrass at 1:12 this afternoon, during which he told Cadet Thompson that his house had been robbed. This information was forwarded to the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol as there was no indication that the situation involved dark magic or wizards. At 1:25, Senior Patrolman Rogers requested that a team be deployed to the scene. Auror Tonks and I arrived at 1:27 and, seeing what had Rogers so troubled, sent for you."

She sighed. Kingsley was one of her best; if he thought she needed to be present, this was certainly going to be _interesting_, though likely not in a good way. A wave of her hand had the two Aurors leading her into the entrance hall of the mansion, and she immediately realized the problem. "That mark… Shack, you were the one who was called to the Rookwood murder-robbery as well, correct?"

"I was. The image is identical, but the message is new." She knelt to better read the words burned into the wall below the grinning fox head and key.

_It is only for your daughter's sake  
__That you were given a second chance.  
__Pure blood cannot wash away  
__The murders your money bought._

_Do not make the same mistake twice._

_Bloody hell,_ she thought. _This guy is willing to call Greengrass out for his 'alleged' role in funding the Death Eaters during the war, then threatens to come back and finish the job? He's got guts, I'll give him that. No brains, but guts a-plenty._ "A house like this is certain to have portraits. Did any of them provide a description of our thief?"

"No, ma'am. All of them had been burned to ash when we arrived."

She looked up at the man. "_All_ of them?"

"Whoever he is, he knows what he's doing. The house was empty, the portraits were destroyed, and the house-elf was found to have been forced into a magical sleep. There are no witnesses whatsoever."

"Damn." _I take back the 'no brains' comment._ She looked about at the MLEP investigators milling about helplessly. "How did he even get in here? I doubt Greengrass lowered his wards and sent out invitations."

The pink-haired woman piped in helpfully, "He didn't even lower the wards for _us_. The thief ripped right through them."

"Surely you're joking, Auror Tonks." It was a well-known fact that Greengrass had an intimidating and extremely expensive suite of defenses around his property. For one person to be able to break down wards of that quality like this rather than sneak in some other way implied either a substantial background in curse-breaking or power at Dumbledore's level.

Considering the audacity he had shown, _neither_ of those was a good option.

"I wish she was," Kingsley sighed. "Greengrass refused to let us examine the wardstone at first, but we got a look eventually. So many of the scripts were burned out that the whole stone needs to be replaced; it's nothing more than a crumbling hunk of granite. Coincidentally, he has also been fined 400 galleons for erecting a number of dark magic wards."

She laughed despite herself. "It's a good thing Mr. Fox decided to leave him his key, then." Standing, she gave her people their marching orders. "For now, treat this as the primary crime; the Rookwood robbery might have been just a trial run. Focus on people with a connection to the girl, particularly if they were employed by Gringotts or an independent tomb-raiding team at some point or if they are non-Pureblood. That mark is probably too old by now to lift a magical signature, but check anyway for comparison to the wands of any suspects your interviews point out." She paused before adding, "Also, remind all the MLEP boys to keep their mouths shut around people from the _Prophet_. The last thing we want is for our fox to bolt like a rabbit."

"What if this _wasn't_ to help the girl?" Tonks asked hesitantly.

"Why would he start out his message like that, then? It's a possibility, I'll admit, but let's wait to see if another house gets hit before we start worrying about it." _Because without witnesses or physical evidence, this connection is our only lead. If you're right, we have someone whose movements we won't be able to predict until he has stolen several hundred thousand more galleons worth of property._ With that thought, she Apparated back to the Ministry to put another couple of teams on pawn-shop-watching duty.

Somehow, she doubted that even these precautions would be enough.

* * *

"You know, we really need to do something nice for Dobby," Luna idly commented a few days later. "If he hadn't put the Greengrasses' elf to sleep and worked in her stead that morning, our heist would have been over before it ever began."

Harry grunted in affirmation as the ward came down. This was a minor thing, so Luna had elected to hang back and let him work on unweaving the building's wards rather than drain them as he had been doing the past few times. He knew the principles, of course, having read several of the same books the girls had; it was mostly practice he was lacking, though a better grounding in runes would certainly be a benefit. "It's open. Let's get what we came for and return to the other target."

They moved quietly inside, and a tap on their masks improved their night-vision. The object they sought was swiftly miniaturized and summoned into one of his pouches. Checking a pocket watch he had purchased secondhand on Saturday afternoon, he noted, "We still have ten minutes before Mione's portkey activates. You think we should grab anything else?"

"May as well. We won't have a second chance, after all."

After a short time filled with silent summoning, Harry asked, "Should we have tried to help the Greengrasses' elf like we did Rookwood's?"

"I don't think it would have worked. It takes a lot of abuse for a house-elf to want to leave her family like Dobby and Floppy did. Most of the actual Death Eaters' elves would appreciate freedom, but the less fanatical supremacists? _Their_ elves would probably prefer the danger they know to the one they don't." Luna sighed and kicked a small table in front of her. "Mione may have chosen the wrong way to go about it, but I can't deny that her heart was in the right place."

Once everything that looked even remotely interesting was in their possession, the duo moved to the door. They glanced outside quickly to verify that the street was still empty, then aimed their wands at one corner.

"_Incendio ingens_."

"_Differretur_ thirty minutes."

They closed the door behind them and raced down the empty streets, reaching their second destination just in time to see Hermione arrive, spinning like a top through the wards they had demolished earlier in the evening. She staggered to her feet and ripped her mask off her face to take deeper breaths than the unobtrusive slits along the fox's smile would allow. After pushing her nausea down, she glared at her girlfriend. "That was truly awful. From now on, please leave the portkey-making to Harry."

"Fine." The blonde pouted for a moment, not that they could see it through her own mask. "You could at least say you appreciate where it brought you."

The bookworm finally took note of her surroundings, and her mouth dropped open. "Oh, wow. Is this… Are we where I think we are?"

"We are, indeed." In the distance, a bell tolled midnight. Harry walked up to Hermione while removing his own mask and wrapped one arm around her waist. A soft kiss prompted a smile. "Happy birthday, Mione."

"Happy birthday," Luna echoed, her arms suddenly joining his in wrapping around their mutual lover. "Do you like your present?"

She hummed as she pulled out of the embrace. "It's _okay_, but I think we can make it better. _Silencio. Confringo_!" A heavy desk exploded and would have peppered them with shrapnel if it weren't for Harry's reflexive shield charm.

"Would a little warning have been too much to ask for? Besides, there are safer ways to demolish this place." he chastised lightly. A twitch of his wand shattered a cheap chair upon its impact with the ceiling. "See? Not nearly as dangerous."

"Not as much fun, either." Luna fiddled with her ebony stick for a moment, then jabbed it at a pair of tables. Bucking wildly, the now-animated furniture raced at each other. It took a few collisions to demolish them properly, but the amusement in watching them stagger about like concussed cows between their runs made up for the delay.

The trio made their way through the building, smashing, blasting, burning, and crushing every object they encountered. By unspoken agreement, they refused to pocket anything unless it was obscenely expensive, such as the diamond paperweight found in the most opulent of the offices. It was a sudden muffled _whump_ — the conflagration Harry had conjured surging into existence now that Luna's delay charm had run its course — that dragged their attention back to the outside world. The blonde glanced about at the destruction they had caused before turning to her companions. "It needs _something_, some little detail to wrap it all up. I'm just not sure what."

He pondered for a moment before inspiration struck. "How much do we want to brass off Snake-face and his lackeys?" Hermione's raised eyebrow and the hands on his lovers' hips gave him all the answer he needed. "We'll need to move quick, because this will _definitely_ be noticed."

The girls nodded and twisted to prepare for Apparation. After setting alight the kindling they had created, he pointed his acacia wand at the ceiling and shouted, "_Reducto_!_ Morsmordre_!" Three cracks signaled their departure.

All they left behind was chaos and emerald sparks forming a snake-tongued skull in the sky.

* * *

…**Yeah, that's a good place to stop. I don't want to ruin the mystery just yet : )**

**Much to my surprise, I had one person make an **_**extremely**_** close guess to my idea for the trio's outfits; well done, Rune Knight Genryu. I actually had the same thoughts Luna did about the problems with silk a few weeks after posting the chapter with that discussion, hence the change.**

* * *

**Wow, so much hate for Malfoy! Not that the little shit doesn't deserve it, but still. To answer **_**several**_** reviewers, no, he isn't going to die in the near future (note the word "**_**near**_**"). At this point in the story, he hasn't actually **_**done**_** anything yet, though that will eventually change.**

**Wrathkal:** The main reason I left the ending how it is is that my muse has yet to reveal to me when or how Malfoy will strike back. Honestly, there's a lot in this story that I know no more about than you guys do.

**Zaralann:** Malfoy _was_ too preoccupied with throwing his weight around, but by now the trio's actions have had a serious ripple effect. Besides, in any kind of fight between him and Harry (even sneak attacks), the time-traveller would win, and that's presuming that Harry would get caught, what with his Cloak and Map.

**Red Phoenix Dragon:** I think Dumbledore has to have the authority to keep the DMLE out, or else the Aurors would have shown up in book 2.

**Crossoverpairinglover:** I wouldn't consider Sirius _or_ Hagrid as "adults", though for different reasons. Harry doesn't really trust any adults, especially not unconditionally; after all, when has an adult done anything for him?

**mageofmyth:** Ah, the final scene of last chapter was the morning after the rest of the chapter; I've since tweaked it to make that clearer. You have to keep in mind that to Dumbledore, Ron is just a pawn to his knight Hagrid and his rook Snape. Harry and Hermione no longer being friends with the redhead is of little concern to him in the grand scheme of things. I have an idea for a pseudo-DA, and I think you'll like it.

**Silently Watches out.**


	30. Cause and Effect

**There's a poll on my profile if you're willing to satisfy my idle curiosity. Special thanks go to reviewer R. Howard Lawrence for this chapter's disclaimer.**

**Disclaimer:** Did Harry rescue a male redheaded git and allow a pair of second-rate Quidditch seekers grab the two teenaged girls? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 30  
****Cause and Effect**

Harry looked up at Hermione's muttering. "What was that?"

She sighed, her eyes still focused on the parliament of owls floating overhead. Considering it was lunch being served at the moment rather than breakfast, such an sight was an odd event indeed. "I _said_, this is without a doubt the most _unique_ birthday present you two have ever given me."

"What about the twenty-foot-tall peanut-butter-and-chocolate bunny statue we made you?"

"I'll admit that one was different," she told the blonde sitting on Harry's other side, "and tasty, too, but it just isn't the same as wrecking a million-or-so galleon business and blaming it on a terrorist group that is doing their best to stay hidden from the public eye."

It was at that moment that Neville rushed up to their seats at the Gryffindor table, puffing as he tried to catch the breath lost during his sudden sprint. "Did you hear?"

"Hear what?" Luna asked, not a hint of guile appearing on her face.

"Death Eaters! They burned down the _Daily Prophet_ office last night!"

Hermione let out a fairly-credible gasp of surprise, and Luna ducked her head, but not before Harry glimpsed the faint grin she was hiding. Smiling in the wake of what the rest of the country honestly believed was an actual attack by Voldemort's forces was sure to create suspicions that they would rather not deal with just now. Quietly clearing his throat, he inquired, "Are they sure?"

"According to my gran, it was definitely the Dark Mark floating over the building," the young Lion replied, waving the letter clenched tightly in his hand. "She said that it was probably in retaliation for denying that You-Know-Who was back. They were never shy about who they killed or what they destroyed last time. The Ministry's facing serious backlash from this since, you know, they spent the entire summer covering it up and calling you a liar."

"That's… that's terrible. I need to tell my parents right away," Hermione finally managed. She rose and fled the room, Harry and Luna nipping at her heels. She eventually stopped in an empty room on the fourth floor immediately off the stairwell, placing it just a few minutes' walk from McGonagall's classroom for the fifth-years and Binns's room for Luna. The brunette locked the door and cast a quick silencing charm over it before laughter spilled unimpeded from her mouth. A minute later, finally calm again, she explained, "Sorry, sorry. I just couldn't sit there any longer with a straight face while Fudge and Umbridge's plans went up in smoke like that. I mean, _three months_ of libel to destroy your reputation, and it took _one spell_ to turn the tables on them?"

Luna smile faded away, replaced by a sharp frown. "Oh, bloody hell."

"What?"

"I just realized that we've also completely cocked up our own plan. This is as bad for Fudge as when he and the other department heads saw Voldemort after we broke into the Ministry. If he gets ousted like last time and Scrimgeour takes his place, we'll be in serious trouble. Even minor crimes were enough for suspicion of being a Death Eater and therefore spending time in Azkaban."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about _that_, necessarily," Harry answered slowly, calling forth his memories of the summer in question. "I may be totally wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure he only got the job because Madam Bones, his boss at the time and now, was assassinated. She's still alive, and while I've only met her the once, she didn't have that whole _'slimy politician'_ feel like Fudge and Scrimgeour do. If she does get offered the job, I suspect she'll turn it down, and I doubt Mr. Chuck-Em-All-In-Azkaban would immediately be considered after that. I have no idea who will take his place, though, and that's assuming that Fudge even looses his position."

"It all comes down to Dumbledore."

"What?" both Harry and Luna asked.

"I thought it was obvious," said the brunette with a shrug. "The old man lost his international post and his position as Chief Warlock, but his real power base always came from being the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Last time, Fudge ran him out and replaced him with the Toad, but thanks to our meddling, that didn't happen. His pride is intact. Will he get rid of Fudge or keep him around as a known quantity? Also, Voldemort wasn't spotted in the heart of the Ministry, so the powers that be, whoever they are, might not be as frightened as they were. How closely they'll follow Dumbledore's recommendations about what to do next is impossible to predict.

"What we _do_ know for sure is that we helped Dumbledore out when we needed him overwhelmed and preoccupied. He is going to be busy in the short term, but in the long term, he'll come out stronger than he was in the old timeline. We got too clever for our own good and cursed ourselves in the collective foot."

Harry sighed and paced for a minute, thoughts whirling furiously through his head. At last he said, "All right, we'll just have to be even more careful what we do in the castle. I know we were tossing around the idea of offing Umbridge, but that plan will have to be shelved for the time being unless Dumbledore gives her the boot." Both girls groaned. "I know, I don't like having her around longer than absolutely necessary either, but the farther from Hogwarts we can keep his attention, the better position we'll be in. We might have to manufacture some Death Eater attacks if they won't cooperate, just to make sure he's too busy to pay us much mind."

"Attack the Black Gates so Sauron won't notice the two hobbits scurrying unseen through his lands," Hermione joked.

"Exactly. This situation isn't as bad as we're making it out to be, or at least it _won't_ be so long as we play it smart. Let's keep our heads down for the next few weeks, see which way the wind is blowing, before we make our next move. Assuming Fudge _is_ tossed out on his ear, I say we rob his home… first weekend in October?" he suggested.

The girls both nodded. That bit of business settled, Luna grinned. "So, now that we've got the boring stuff out of the way… _Pressie time!"_ She pulled a small but brightly-colored item from her bag and set it on the floor. A wave of her wand enlarged it until it stood six feet tall. "This is your major gift from the both of us."

"Oh, you shouldn't have," the brunette said in a mockingly high voice, though her smile revealed her amusement. She stepped closer to rip the wrapping paper from the mystery object. "It will be hard to top letting me trash the _Prophet_ offices… Seriously? You're giving me something I need to _fix_ before I can do anything with it? You better have kept the receipt; I want to return this at the first opportunity."

"Sorry, love, but that's just not possible. I'm afraid the shop we found it in kind of… burned to the ground last night," Harry replied.

Hermione nodded. "So _that's_ what that noise was." She looked over the black and gold cabinet critically. Vanishing Cabinets were rather uncommon artifacts, and since the trio had been in the general area the previous night and already had access to the matching unit, her lovers felt it foolish to leave it where the Death Eaters could get their grubby paws on it.

Reducing Borgin and Burke's to ash in the process was just gratis.

"Don't complain," Luna chastised playfully. "All it needs is a couple hours' work, and then you'll be able to visit your parents whenever you want without worrying about sneaking out of the wards. I'll even help with the repairs."

"You better," replied Hermione. She gave her girlfriend a swift kiss in thanks, then repeated the favor for her boyfriend. Shrinking it and summoning it into her bag, she said, "Lunch is ending soon. If we want to avoid suspicion, we'll need to act like perfect angels for a while, and that includes being on time to our classes."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Probably a good thing Snape's deader than a doornail, then."

* * *

In Hogwarts, finding bullies was not an overly difficult task. Perhaps because of the stone halls' acoustics, perhaps because of the brats' abundance in this corner of Scotland, perhaps because magic was just strange like that, their jeers would echo throughout the building, allowing them to be stalked from half a castle away. The blonde time-traveller rounded a corner, ebony wand out and tapping against her thigh in readiness for some fast cursing.

Luna _despised_ bullies.

Sure enough, there were three girls laughing and shoving a fourth against a wall. One of them taunted, "Still think you're too good for us, huh? Think you're so special?" She whipped out her wand and caught their victim with a stinging hex. "Well, let me remind you of something. You're _poor_ now. You're _nothing_! You should have come back to us on your hands and knees, and _maybe_ we'd have ignored you after letting some of the older boys have their fun with you. But no, you didn't; you pretended everything was still the way it used to be. Well, Greengrass, it's time to teach you a lesson!"

That line told Luna _exactly_ who they were talking to, and her anger flared even higher. With a nonverbal incantation and a simultaneous flick of her wand, the bullies found themselves with empty hands as their foci flew past her and down the empty corridor. "A couple of lessons, actually, which you need to learn as well. First, never get too comfortable with your level of skill. There is _always_ someone better. Second, there are people in this school who may not have a prefect's badge but will still put a stop to disgusting displays like this one. Now, this little party is over; move along before I decided to do some bullying of my own."

"We'll be done when we're done, not when—" The ringleader's diatribe was cut off as a jet of lemon-yellow light slammed into her belly. Her mouth opened again, but it was solely to allow a torrent of slugs to pour forth.

Her cronies grabbed her arms and began hauling her away. One of them turned back and shouted, "You'll be sorry! We'll make you pay for this!"

"Sure, sure. Snape's not here to protect you anymore, and I can take all of you on in my sleep." Swallowing the rest of her mutterings, Luna stepped closer to the fallen child and knelt beside her. "You all right, kiddo?"

Astoria Greengrass looked up at her savior in confusion and not a little residual panic. "Why? Why would you help me?"

"There are many possible answers to that question, the simplest of which is that I hate bullies, having been their play toy myself for far too long. Come on, up you get." She helped her fellow blonde to her feet and began walking, her hand never releasing its gentle grasp on Astoria's own. "How long have they been treating you like this?"

"They've never acted like that before."

Luna turned her head to look at the younger girl with one eye. "You see the blue trim on my robes? I'm a Ravenclaw; don't treat me like an idiot. Physical intimidation doesn't just come out of nowhere, at least not with us girls, and there's much more to bullying than just hexing people. Try again."

They traveled down several corridors before Astoria spoke again. "Since last weekend. They've never liked me much because I wouldn't join in their _'fun'_ with our yearmates in other houses, but they didn't move beyond insulting me behind my back until my family was robbed."

Her gut twisted uncomfortably. "Fun, huh? You mean they didn't like that you're not a blood purist," she asked rhetorically, carefully not looking at the girl whose life she and her lovers had knowingly made difficult.

"How did you know that?" Astoria gasped, feet grinding to a halt.

"Wasn't hard. Ravenclaws are jeered at for disagreeing with what's written in books, Gryffindors for not charging recklessly into danger, and Hufflepuffs for being introverted or self-sufficient. Why wouldn't Slytherins be ridiculed for daring to have a sense of decency?" She tugged the stupefied girl back into motion, traversing halls and stairs until they stopped in front of a painting depicting a bowl of fruit. "Know where we are, Astoria?"

The isolated Snake spluttered at the uninvited informality for a moment before responding, "No. Should I?"

"Probably not. Can you keep a secret?" At the other teen's hesitant nod and the tiny beginnings of a smile, she grinned back and reached out a hand. One tickled pear later and the frame rotated inwards, granting the two passage. "Welcome to the Hogwarts kitchens."

As if by, well, _magic_, twenty house-elves appeared in front of them. "Missy Loveygoody! Can wes be helping you?" the lead one asked.

Luna looked over Astoria and nodded to herself. "Some hot cocoa, I think, and maybe a few biscuits if there are any available." The pair were rapidly seated at the table set up for this precise purpose and handed their refreshments. As was becoming common, several minutes of silence followed.

"So… The house-elves know you by name. Do you come here often or something?"

She smiled at the cliched pick-up line, even though she knew that was not how the younger blonde meant it. "I started visiting late in my first year. It gave me some time away from my housemates, where I didn't have to worry about embarrassing spells hitting me from behind or having my belongs _mysteriously_ disappear. If I hadn't had this place of peace, I think I would have snapped and either gone on a murderous rampage or withdrawn so far into myself that no one could get me out." _The latter of which came __**far**__ too close to reality for comfort_.

"Hogwarts was a sanctuary for me, too, even if it was confusing at first," Astoria admitted finally. "My family is all about proper composure and blood purity and _'reclaiming our world from the Muggleborn infestation'_. Mother and Father are… like statues or something, never happy or anything like that; the only emotion they ever showed was disapproval when I acted out. Until I came here, I thought that was how everyone behaved, that I was just some kind of freak, so imagine my surprise when I found out that wasn't the case. Other kids get to have fun with their friends and not worry about keeping up a mask all the time. I wanted that, _want_ that, but I can't seem to find it."

"That's because you've been looking in all the wrong places," Luna replied gently. "You need people who understand where you're coming from, even if they aren't necessarily from the exact same place. Take me, for instance; until this year, I was just that crazy girl who believed in a bunch of imaginary creatures and wandered about in a daze all the time."

"But you're not anymore! Everyone's at least heard about your Snorlaff, if not seen it."

"Snorkack. My point, though, is that I know what it's like to be ostracized for no good reason. Harry and Hermione, my…" _lovers, my life_ "…best friends, would understand, too."

"Harry?" Astoria asked quietly, a blush staining her cheeks pink. "You don't mean Harry Potter, do you?"

Luna laughed in her mind. _Uh-oh, somebody's got a cruuuuush. Makes sense; for a girl from a supremacist family, he's the ultimate _'boy her parents would **never** let her date'_. Too bad for her he's well and truly taken._ Choosing to ignore the obvious puppy love, she replied, "Well, I'm certainly not talking about Harry Hartwell, the first-year 'Claw. Is it so hard to imagine he would be able to relate to you?"

"But… but he's the Boy-Who-Lived!"

She nodded solemnly. "Yes, some days he's the vanquisher of Voldemort." She let the younger girl get her squeak out of the way before she continued, "On others, he's a Dark Lord in training. He's the _'Golden Boy of Gryffindor'_; he's a Parselmouth. He won the Triwizard Tournament, but everyone and their mother was convinced he cheated to get in. And just yesterday, he was either deluded or an attention-addicted liar, but as soon as the Dark Mark was seen in the sky, he was the lone light in the darkness. He once told me that public opinion was like a coin-flip: he's loved when it comes up heads and hated when it lands on tails.

"Don't you think he would understand what you mean when you talk about how your house and your family act like there is something wrong with you, even though you did nothing to deserve it?"

"Oh." Astoria looked down at her lap in embarrassment.

"But we're rather far afield from what I brought you here to discuss. How much danger do you think the Slytherin dorms pose to you right now?"

The green-trimmed girl sighed, her resignation obvious. "Why are you so interested?"

"Didn't I just tell you that? I'd like to be your friend. If you'll have me." She smiled softly at Astoria's wide eyes. "And do you want to know one good thing about friends? They'll do whatever they can to help you out of bad situations."

Harry certainly had tried to do that for her. Considering how it was her and her lovers' actions that had caused Astoria's problems, it was only right that they help put a stop to them.

"It… It could be worse, I guess. It started off as just more insults, nothing I can't handle, but some of my essays disappeared this morning, and then Roberson and her dogs just now. I… I'm scared about how the house will treat me in a few weeks if it's like this already."

"What _has_ Pince been doing? I'd have expected her to lay into anyone causing trouble with one of her volumes of _Annals of Wizarding Genology_. Half a stone of parchment and binding should have straightened most of your housemates out." As the lone Slytherin alumna on campus, the crotchety librarian had been obligated to take the reins of her old house, at least temporarily. _Obviously_ she was not the best choice for the permanent position.

"She comes down once every three days, right after dinner. It's a free-for-all otherwise, with the prefects and Quidditch team being the worst out of everybody."

_And knowing Snape, __**of course**__ the positions of authority all went to the biggest bigots. Malfoy was evidence enough on that one._ A thought taking root in her mind, Luna said, "Well, we have about an hour until fourth period. It's not much, but I can teach you some good charms for protecting your belongings from would-be thieves. Protecting your _person_, on the other hand… that will be a little more difficult. Do you already know any basic dueling spells, by chance?"

"_Protego, Stupefy, Locomotor mortis_, basic things like that," Astoria answered. "My father taught me and David when we were younger."

"That should be enough for the next few days. Let me talk to a couple of people, and we'll see what we can do about the long term. So, here's how you cast the Ankle Noose hex; I'll show you how to turn it into a paling, a sort of temporary ward, once you've got it down…"

* * *

The thump of glass inkwell on wood drew Hermione's eyes from her book. "What do you want now, Ron?"

"I need help with my essay," he answered, dropping a roll of parchment onto the table. "McGonagall said it has to be done by tomorrow, or I'm going to get a T for it."

She blinked in surprise. "What essay? McGonagall didn't assign any homework on Tuesday."

"Er… _Effects of Latent Attributes on Inanimate Conjuration_," he read from the top of the parchment.

"Ron, that was due _last Friday!_ Are you seriously saying that even after missing the deadline and being given an extra week to work on it, you're still not done?"

"Well, no. I've been busy with, er, prefect stuff."

"You mean playing chess with Seamus and ogling Lavender's tits," she corrected sternly. The other occupants of the common room grew quiet; said girl was not present, though knowing the Hogwarts rumor mill, she and the rest of the school were sure to hear about this in short order. "Why should I spend _my_ time helping you when you're perfectly content wasting your own?"

"Because if you don't help me, I'm going to fail," he replied, the barest hint of a smirk on his lips. In the previous timeline, he had used almost the exact same excuse, and she had predictably caved. _Come to think of it, that wasn't the first or last time he pulled that trick, either. What a fool I was._

Of course, there were major differences between then and now. First, she was not the lonely sixteen-year-old who considered grades to be the end-all and be-all of life. Second, Harry, who had always been a better friend to her than Ron ever dreamed of being, wasn't with the redhead asking for her help in that hangdog way he had possessed as a teen. That had always tugged on her heartstrings, and she was rather glad that he hadn't taken it back up now that they were in the past. There was no telling what he would be able to convince her to do.

Third, she still had a bit of an axe to grind with the youngest Weasley boy.

"Okay." She lifted her book and resumed reading; she had finished two pages and was halfway through a third before he seemed to figure out her message.

"Hermione, I'm serious! I need you to help me!"

"Oh, I am just as serious, Ron. You had your shot at getting my assistance, and you squandered it. Don't come crawling to me now because you're too immature to keep track of when your assignments are due."

"But you always work on my essays for me!" he cried.

"I did," she admitted, "much to my shame. Like a mother coddling a whiny brat, I gave you whatever you demanded just to shut you up, but now it's time for you to stand on your own two feet. You're fifteen; if doing your own work in preparation for the OWLs is too much for you, you don't deserve to be here."

"You want me to fail?!"

She shook her head though she knew it was a half-truth at best; she didn't care if he passed or failed. What she wanted was him to be far, _far_ away, no longer a possible future threat to her or the ones she cared about. "No, I want you to take responsibility for your own actions. It's something my mother told me this summer: I won't always be by your side, especially not with how you've been treating Harry and me lately. I have many things that I would much prefer to do than drag an inconstant friend through three more years of school just because he doesn't care enough about it to put in the effort himself. Well, no more; I wash my hands of you."

"Huh?"

"You're no longer my problem," she explained shortly. "Find someone else to bother, fail, or grow up. I don't give a damn which."

He snarled and stomped off. Out of curiosity, she unrolled the parchment and glanced at what he had done so far. _That utter prat! This is so like him! He hasn't done a bloody thing! What did he expect, that I would just let him copy my essay so he could continue coasting through?_

_This won't be the last time he pulls this stunt, either, not when he's too lazy to even __**try**_, she thought seething. _But his biggest problem was always that he expected things to be handed to him. Homework, Quidditch, Head Boy, Triwizard Champion, me, it didn't matter; if he wanted it, he thought it was owed him. He's not willing to put the work in to __**earn**__ it, and no one ever did anything to disabuse him of that notion._

_It's time he learned that he's no more entitled than anyone else, and less so than most people._

* * *

Harry, sitting across the common room from his lover, turned back to his Herbology assignment now that confrontation between the two was over. _Why were we ever friends with that leech? Oh, that's right, we both had childhoods so starved of companionship that like beaten puppies we latched onto the first person to show us the least bit of affection. Throw in how we're both introverts, and what reason did we have for expanding our circle to include other, better people?_

He shook his head. That had been one benefit of the DA; he had finally gotten to know people he had been in classes with for four years who he had never spoken to before then. _And it was only then that they realized that I had never meant to snub them. I wonder how much of the denigration I suffered those first few years was the result of everyone else in the castle thinking I was some self-absorbed git who was too busy looking down my nose at them to give them the time of day?_

_Oh, well. Funnily enough, it's only now that I know what the problem is that I __**am**__ intentionally ignoring them. Just like the general population, the majority of students are cowards who would rather be ruled by a madman than risk anything resisting him. I have no reason to waste my time with such contemptible sheep._

_Now, where was I?_ He glanced over his writing, barely withholding a sigh. Sprout, fair-minded Hufflepuff that she was, had added a potions component to her lessons, detailing how certain plants would react in brews and how to prepare them. It was fresh, interesting, and much more informative than Snape had ever been, but that new material also made its way into the essays she wanted them to write. Of all his classes, this was the one he could not simply copy down his papers from the previous timeline.

The jury was still out on whether it would change back to normal when Dumbledore found a replacement Potions professor.

_Actually, I hope the old man convinces Slughorn to return. Not only was the walrus a half-decent teacher, he deserves some karmic retribution. If that greedy bastard hadn't spilled everything he knew about Horcruces to a teenage psychopath, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. I doubt that was the first or last such discussion between them, either. How much special attention did Voldemort receive from the head of Slytherin in return for boxes of candied pineapple?_

Shaking those thoughts away before they appeared on his face, he reread the previous paragraphs, and an idea unfurled as he took in what he had written about jasmine. _That's… that's perfect. I'll get Dobby — no, better be Winky; Dobby would be guaranteed to go overboard — to make just a __**little**__ adjustment to Molly's potion ingredients. A few ounces should do the trick. If she's different in this timeline in that respect, it won't affect her whatsoever, but if she's not…_

_Well, she'll deserve it then, won't she?_

* * *

Waking up from a raunchy dream involving two sexy ladies, a hot tub, and enough whipped cream to drown a whale to an all-boys dorm was bad enough in Harry's opinion. Having the first thing he saw being Peeves's face was just adding insult to injury.

"Ahhh!" he screamed, batting the faery away. It took a couple of breaths to slow his pulse from one a frightened rabbit would envy. "Peeves, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Do you know what today is?" the semi-corporeal prankster asked, ignoring Harry's discomfort entirely.

"Er… Saturday?"

"It's the Autumnal Equinox." Peeves loomed and leered. "You have an audience with Her Highness at noon, and you. Will. Not. Miss it."

* * *

**Yes, another Tolkien reference. What can I say, **_**The Lord of the Rings**_** is one of my favorite books.**

**According to the sixth movie and the HP Wiki, there's one spell that will fix a broken Vanishing Cabinet. Three words. That somehow took Malfoy almost an entire year to be able to cast. Yeah, I'm thinking it's a **_**little**_** more complicated than that; not even the blond daddy's boy is quite **_**that**_** stupid.**

**Funny thing. I was fact-checking for the Hermione vs. Ron scene, thinking I had gone a little **_**too**_** far in bashing his stupidity and reliance on her to pass his classes, and lo and behold, he did **_**that exact thing**_** in chapter 13 of book 5, including writing only the title of his essay and expecting her to do the rest of the work.**

* * *

**plums:** The majority of the robberies will happen before they fight Voldemort personally. They have to cut off his resources and thin out the ranks of the Death Eaters before they take him on. Also, Voldie still has one Horcrux out, Nagini.

**keichan2:** Silk gloves probably would cause problems with casting, but the trio's are made of leather. I forgot to mention that little detail.

**AJ Granger:** You can complain all you want, but I _will NOT_ get rid of Hermione nor change my depiction of her character mid-story.

**Silently Watches out.**


End file.
